


Prince of Death

by LadyAramisGrey



Series: Hades Rising [2]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), RIORDAN Rick - Works, Stargate - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angel is Bad at Feelings, Because the multiverse is involved, Dionysus is Complicated, Hades is a Good Parent, Multi, Mythology - Freeform, Sort Of, Team as Family, death is an illusion, help i've fallen into worldbuilding and i can't get up, much liberty is taken with Riordan's work
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-09-02
Packaged: 2019-09-16 21:24:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16961742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAramisGrey/pseuds/LadyAramisGrey
Summary: Xander Harris has a secret. It's not life-changing, not really. More...death-changing. As Buffy and co. continue surviving everything the Hellmouth can throw at them, they find themselves getting drawn deeper and deeper into the mysterious world that Xander and his mother come from.Let's just hope the Powers that Be don't get involved.





	1. Part 1, Legacy: Cold Hands, Warm Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Here's one of my older stories, finally put into cohesive fashion! If you're migrating here from my other works, might I recommend going back and reading the prologue/massive foreshadowing oneshot that precedes this work in the series? It's really just a stage-setting piece, but does contain some necessary information later. If you don't feel like reading the prologue now, that's fine too. I plan to mention it again when the information finally becomes relevant (around chapter...20-ish, according to my current outline).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander has a secret, but he's also very, very good at deflecting attention from himself. (He's the donuts and jokes guy, what do you expect?) Unfortunately, the time is coming when his secrets may have to be revealed.
> 
> He's just hoping for some advice before it come to that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is mostly a summary of season 1 (Buffy's first semester in Sunnydale) and then it begins to go into the summer. You may think it's weird I'm revealing all Xander's secrets up front...but that's where you'd be wrong. Oh no, that's NEXT chapter.
> 
> Enjoy!

Buffy Summers was sure that there was something very odd about Xander Harris. Her suspicions hadn’t existed when she first met him. From the moment the teen had fallen off his skateboard in front of her Buffy had mentally relegated him to the “dumb boy with a crush” category in her mind. But later when they had all be in the library with Buffy and Mr. Giles trying to explain vampires and Slayers to these two Sunnydale residents the first incident had happened. Xander had taken a book from Buffy, and his pale skin had brushed her tanned hands.

“Yikes!” she said, jerking her hands back. A thought occurred to her, and Buffy’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You’ve got…really cold hands.” She could see the tweedy librarian stiffening out of the corner of her eye. But to her surprise, Willow and Xander had laughed.

“Creepy, isn’t it?” Xander asked, wiggling his fingers at her.

Buffy wasn’t quite sure what to say, and when he pressed one cold palm against her neck she squealed and batted his hand away. She was now almost convinced he must be a vampire. Buffy didn’t know how she hadn’t seen it before; he was very pale, and his eyes were almost too bright. But she’d seen him in sunlight! How could a vampire have walked in the sun? But Xander’s best friend interrupted her bewildered thoughts.

“Xander, be nice!” Willow scolded gently. The redhead turned to Buffy. “He’s got a medical condition that lowers his core temperature and makes his heart beat really slowly. Xander thinks it’s funny to shock people with how cold his hands are. He even played dead in PE once and gave our elementary PE teacher a real heart attack cause she couldn’t find his pulse and she thought she’d killed a student.”

Buffy would have still dismissed it and gone ahead with staking him, but…elementary school? “How long has he had this “medical condition”, exactly?” she asked skeptically.

Xander shrugged. “Since forever. Apparently the doctors thought I was stillborn at first cause I didn’t cry, but my mom woke me up a bit and then they ran a ton of tests to see what was wrong with me. And here I am today, living zombie extraordinaire.” He held up a wrist and the metal bracelet he always wore glinted in the light.

“Willow and Jesse even made me this nifty bracelet that tells people what’s wrong with me for my birthday a few years ago. They based it off of the whole allergy bracelet concept.”

“Oh,” Buffy had said in a very small voice. The girl felt terrible. She’d been ready to stake a classmate just because he was kinda vampire-like! This new town was really making her paranoid.

By the end of her first week at Sunnydale High Buffy had brushed the incident off as a fluke and had re-categorized Xander as “goofy friend with medical problems”. She was soon too busy to wonder about the smaller oddities she saw with Xander, what with school and Slayage and hinky magical stuffy happening at school. Really, what was _up_ with Sunnydale High? It was like a magnet for the weird and demon-y.

But then the hyena incident happened. Oh, Xander was possessed just like the rest of them, but he was so much less animal-like than the others. The boy actually seemed to retain his human smarts, if not his niceness. (Really, if Xander hadn’t been possessed she would have decked him for hurting Willow like that.) And then he had come on to her. Buffy knew Xander had a crush on her, but this was so much creepier than a normal love-sick crush. He had overpowered her and held her down, stroking her face.

“My own beautiful Despoina, darling Kore of light and life, give me your love and I will give you a kingdom.” He’d whispered it in her ear softly, kindly, and she might have dismissed it as more of the weird hyena-ness if not for how unlike his other behavior it had been. And so after they’d gotten Xander all properly exorcised and back to being their goofy Xander-shaped friend Buffy had gone and cornered Giles in the library.

“There was something weird when Xander was possessed by the hyena,” Buffy announced as soon as she was sure Xander and Willow weren’t present.

Giles had frowned. “More odd than his, eh, hyena behavior?”

“Definitely,” Buffy said firmly. Giles began cleaning his glasses.

“C-could you, ah, explain? It might have just been part of the possession, you know, whatever it was.”

Buffy shook her head. “Nuh-uh. The hyena was all grr and predator and sex-obsessed and munching on little pigs. But for a minute, before I hit him with the desk, he was…weird.”

Giles was frowning. “In- in what way?”

The Slayer sighed gustily. “Well, for one, he was talking in poetry, not just “I Tarzan, you Jane, we mates” stuff. And the stuff he said…” Buffy trailed off for a moment. “It just wasn’t very hyena-y.”

The librarian gestured at her expectantly. “Well? What-um-what did he say?”

“He…” Buffy tried to remember the exact wording. “He called me, uh, De-spo-eena? I think it’s a name. And then he called me Core-ay of…light and life. I think. And he said if I gave him my love he would give me a kingdom. That’s what made me really think it wasn’t just the hyena.”

Giles was cleaning his glasses again. “You-you’re quite sure he said kingdom?”

“Yeah, why? Does that all mean something important? Xander’s okay now, right? Right? The ritual thing should have fixed him.” Buffy stared her Watcher down.

The man in question sighed. “I-I would have to do more research to see how it connects with the Primal Xander was possessed by, but t-th-the references you mentioned are all very clear. He called you Kore, and Despoina. Those were both names for the goddess Persephone.”

Buffy looked rather stunned. “He was calling me a goddess?” Maybe she’d underestimated the level of Xander’s crush on her. But comparing her to a goddess? That was really sweet, in a psychotic possessed-by-a-hyena kind of way.

“I would guess it was a reference to the kidnapping of Persephone by the god-king Hades, with you in the role of Persephone and him in the role of Hades. Thus, offering you a kingdom if you gave him your love.”

“The kidnapping of Persephone? Wait — isn’t Hades basically Satan?”

Giles sighed. “No, Hades is not Satan. He is the Greek god of the Underworld, and king of the dead. It was his job to judge the souls of the dead and make sure the evil were properly punished while the good were properly rewarded. He was a bit dark, but then, most gods that deal with the dead tend to be so. And the kidnapping of Persephone — or the Rape of Persephone, as it was called during the Renaissance — was the most famous legend Hades participated in.”

The librarian gestured animatedly as he spoke, Buffy interested in spite of herself. “It was said that Hades had seen Persephone from afar while travelling the earth, and had fallen in love with her. Or possibly was spelled to fall in love with her. There were two versions of the myth, one involving Cupid. But the end result either way was Hades kidnapping Persephone and taking her to his grand palace under the earth. Even though the other gods were outraged, Hades refused to release her, instead trying to convince Persephone to agree to his hand in marriage.

“Persephone’s mother Demeter was the goddess of agriculture, and her grief at the loss of her daughter was so great that she sent the whole earth into an eternal winter. Eventually Zeus bargained with his brother to allow Persephone to leave, but during her stay the goddess had eaten some of the fruits of the Underworld, tying her forever to Hades. And that is the origin story of winter, because Persephone spends a third of the year in the Underworld with her husband, and during those months her mother refuses to allow anything to grow. It’s quite the fascinating myth, as there are so many little details that vary from version to version of the story.”

At this point Giles seemed to have run out of things to say, and Buffy frowned as she thought all that over. “So, he’s okay now? It was just the hyena pulling up some mythology Xander had read?” That made sense to her, and it meant Xander didn’t have anything wrong with him. Giles seemed less sure.

“I-it-it does seem odd, that the hyena would do such a thing. Primals aren’t big o-on-on artistic displays like poetry or metaphor. I shall have to do a bit more research, but unless you notice anything strange, Xander is likely perfectly fine. He seemed normal enough yesterday.” The man’s lips quirked in an odd smile that turned into a thoughtful frown, but Buffy didn’t notice, unaware that the librarian was remembering his conversation the day before with Xander about possessions and amnesia — or lack thereof.

In the end, Buffy’s worries were appeased and she finally stopped trying to see strange things in Xander, firmly dismissing her instincts which screamed every time he moved. But Giles’ instincts had only been stirred.

He, like Buffy, had been worried when the Slayer noticed how cold Xander’s skin was and how very vampire-like he looked. Unlike Buffy, Giles’ worries were not soothed with the explanation of a medical condition. There were many other demons that resembled their vampiric brethren. He had to know that Xander was safe to allow around his Slayer. So, the man did a few inquiries, using some less than reputable sources to get some extra information on the Harris family.

His father had been born and bred in Sunnydale, and seemed thoroughly human for all that the man’s entire extended family had somehow survived for several generations living in a town over the mouth of Hell. The mother, on the other hand, was a bit more suspect. A young Greek immigrant who seemingly appeared in the late 1960s with little to no paperwork or identification, she had applied for citizenship almost as soon as she was admitted to the States.

The young woman had then traveled extensively across the US for the next decade, never staying somewhere for more than a year. Her journey came to a sudden and grinding halt in Sunnydale when she met and promptly married Anthony Harris. Xander was born less than nine months later, but strangely enough Tony Harris wasn’t written onto his birth certificate as the father. Instead, that spot had been left blank.

Xander’s story about his medical condition did check out. Alexander Lavelle Harris was born premature, nearly a month and a half early. He was quite large for a preemie baby, but had been born still and unbreathing. The medical records Giles had gotten from the school records had the symptoms of Xander’s condition listed — cool to the touch, heartbeat undetectable except with special equipment, if his extremities begin to turn blue warm him up immediately — but the actual condition was never named. Giles supposed if the boy was part demon, his family seemed to be keeping it well under wraps, and so he simply resolved to keep an eye on the cheerful teenager.

That resolve was compounded by the things Buffy had told him about the hyena possession. Giles had actually tried to corner Xander afterwards and talk to him a bit more about what he remembered, but the boy had been understandably reluctant to discuss the savagery he had engaged in.

Giles had eventually relented, but kept a close eye on Xander for the rest of the year. Around Christmastime there was another odd incident. Buffy had been going on about Christmas in an attempt to make Giles give her the holidays off on patrolling. Giles was unwilling to give in entirely, as he’d already given her Christmas Eve to Boxing Day for family time. Buffy had then appealed to Willow and Xander, who had been sitting and listening to this in amusement.

“Well, Buff,” Xander had replied. “It would be kinda hard for Willow and I to expound on the fabulousness of Christmas as neither of us celebrate it.”

Buffy had blinked, confused. “What do you mean you don’t celebrate Christmas?” She sounded appalled.

“Well, I’m Jewish,” Willow cut in. “So my family celebrates Hanukkah instead of Christmas.”

Xander nodded. “Exactly. And my dad’s family does come over for Christmas, but Mom’s a Daughter of Polydegmon so we have a private Saturnalia celebration.”

That revelation made Giles sit up straighter in his chair and stare hard at Xander. “Y-you-you are a follower of the old Greek gods?” he asked in astonishment.

The teen shrugged. “I guess. We’re not very devout except with the Unseen One. Mom and I celebrate Lemuria, Feralia, and Saturnalia during the year. And we sometimes do Samhain rituals in addition to Halloween cause she says it’s about the dead, and everyone knows Polydegmon digs everything to do with dead people. And whenever someone I know dies I go to the graveyard and sacrifice some coins and a Happy Meal.”

Giles was rather flabbergasted. “A Happy Meal?”

“Sure.” Xander didn’t seem to understand his bewilderment. “It’s got the meat, and the food prepared by man, and Mom says the ghosts like the toys.” Giles _really_ wasn’t sure how to reply to that, but he supposed a priestess to Polydegmon would know best.

That brought a whole new light to Buffy’s report of Xander’s odd behavior during the hyena possession. Polydegmon was one of the epitaphs used for Hades by his worshipers, as it was considered bad luck to speak the Dread King’s name aloud. The son of a priestess of Hades (and a possible priest-in-training himself) would indeed have an odd reaction to a Primal spirit.

With that mystery seemingly solved, Giles also put the mysteries to do with Xander on the back burner, not even growing suspicious when the boy _broke_ a prophecy and saved Buffy from death. By the time summer came all seemed to be well with the “Scoobies”, as Xander had titled them, with Willow and Xander firmly ensconced as helpers to the Slayer in Giles’ mind. He didn’t even put any of the oddities about Xander into his reports, dismissing them as the imaginings of a habit of suspicion. And then he was home in England for the summer and was too busy relaxing and enjoying quality tea to worry about much of anything.

*          *          *

Xander had had a very good summer. He and his mom had done rites for Jesse’s spirit just in case during the Lemuralia that May. They had used the vampire dust Xander had saved from the Bronze to complete the ritual. If Jesse’s spirit had been lingering with any sort of rage or ill will he would now be released to go peacefully to the afterlife. It had given Xander a strange sort of closure, doing the rituals. He felt that for the first time he understood how important his mom said they were.

During Lemuria, Xander had also felt The Presence for the first time in quite a few years. The last time, the teen remembered vividly, had been on vacation to a national cemetery when he was eight. Xander craved The Presence, craved what it meant. But his mom didn’t seem to like the effect The Presence had on him. When Xander had hit middle school his mom had stopped being so stringent about the rituals and other things they did together. She had claimed she wanted him to have a normal adolescence, and get to grow up like a mostly average teenager, but Xander knew part of it was that she wanted him to be a normal and happy _human_ for just a bit longer. His mom had held his hand and taught him the basics for so many years now. Sometime soon Xander would have to find his own way in regards to his destiny, but his mom didn’t want it to happen just yet.

He’d been thinking about destiny a lot since meeting Buffy. Xander had known his destiny, his fate since he was a little kid. How horrible must it be to spend your whole childhood thinking you were one thing and then waking up some mighty warrior? Xander didn’t think he’d have dealt with it half as well as Buffy seemed to. But then, his destiny was very different from hers.

All Giles’ pointed questions had amused Xander during the past year. The man had obviously been fishing for information about Xander’s family and heritage. The teen had even considered telling the man everything. Giles was a pretty cool guy once you started to get to know him, and Xander thought he could be trusted, but his mom had vetoed it for now. So Xander had deflected and watched with entertainment as Giles veered more and more off track.

He wondered how the man had missed it: he’d said his mom was the _Daughter_ of Polydegmon, not priestess. Daughter capital-D. Of course, Xander supposed the truth was really too fantastic to be believed. It was why he and his mom had let Willow think they were cultists all these years. Being considered weird pagan cultists was less odd than trying to explain “Yeah, my mom is the divine daughter of Hades and Persephone, only she’s stuck in human form, and, yeah, I’m probably going to become the new God of the Dead when I’m grown up.” Cultist was much easier to believe when they didn’t dare provide real proof.

Sometimes Xander wished he could tell Willow his mom’s stories without her thinking he was crazy. The stories about the power of the Greek Pantheon — how pervasive their influence had once been, and how they had ruled over several different versions of earth long ago. How a new group of Powers had moved in, and pushed the gods and their ilk out of every world they could; every world except one. How that one world was divided into two sides, the mundane and the supernatural, the split maintained by a wall of Mist. He wished he could tell her about the Mist, about how sometimes Xander could peer into it and see an entirely different world, a different dimension of magic and light and shadow. Xander just knew Willow would find the stories about all the fantastic creatures hidden under the Mist just as cool as he did.

But he had never been able to tell her. This world was so very different from that one. The horror in his mom’s voice as she told of her entrance into this world, and her desperate search for a way home, had haunted Xander’s nightmares for years. His mom knew there was some sort of supernatural element in this world, but neither of them had known exactly what kind of supernatural forces existed (well, aside from the Powers That Be and their minions). _Now_ Xander knew, and he had told his mother everything Giles had taught him, but the damage was done. Would Willow think he’d been lying all these years to her? What if Buffy decided he was some sort of demon — and that was frighteningly likely; it wasn’t as if Xander had ever been truly _human_ — and tried to slay him?

Xander had been forced to have some very serious discussions with his mom once the Master was gone. Buffy had been dead and half-way to Charon’s boat when Xander had pulled her back, and the power he had used had begun an unstoppable process. Bringing Buffy back from the dead had jump-started his own destiny.

See, the problem with this world was the fact that the Powers That Be? They were a bunch of lazy bastards who didn’t care about the state of the universe except when it concerned their own plans. The Powers had pushed the old gods out of the universe, but hadn’t bothered to revamp the structure of the world. Instead, they had simply taken over the exact roles the gods had once used, only modifying them a little where necessary. But when the Greek gods had been pushed out, there was no Power to take over the Underworld. None of them wanted the duty, the _isolation_ that came from being King of the Dead. And so this world’s version of the Underworld lay empty and unruled. It might have culminated in total disaster, but the Underworld’s former connections to Hades were never severed, and so the god was forced to deal with the dead of two universes: both this original one which had once been a godly base of operations in the multiverse, and the world the various gods and goddesses had been exiled to.

Xander remembered the stories his mom had told of how full the Underworld had been getting. How difficult his grandfather had found it to manage the extra souls. But there had been no solution in sight — not until Xander’s mom got herself trapped in this world, hidden from the eyes of the Powers That Be by a fragile human shell.

His mom could never rule the Underworld. She _was_ a death goddess, but a very minor one all the same. The power would kill her and scatter her remains into Tartarus. At first she’d though she was stuck, doomed to be killed by the Powers as soon as her human body gave out and revealed her true identity. And then, even worse, she had fallen pregnant by one of the minor non-human powers of this world. Once Xander knew about the Hellmouth, he tried to ask her about his blood father, but his mom was very good at dodging questions. He just knew the guy was definitely not human, and definitely not Tony Harris, whose only use was the way his stench covered Xander’s demigod-like scent. The drunken bastard was only good for hiding the humanized goddess and young godling from the few monsters that plagued this world.

Thankfully for Xander, in her search for a doorway back home his mom had found something unusual. She had found a crack into another dimension; the phenomenon Xander now knew by the name of Hellmouth. Apparently she’d seen an opportunity in the power always leaking from the Hellmouth. His mom had married a man who had lived in this town his whole life and had performed the proper rites when Xander was born, complete with a Kiss of Death that would slowly give him the body and constitution of a major death god.

The boy had known since he was old enough to understand the concept that one day he would need to work to replace his grandfather as the Dread King in this universe. But it shouldn’t have begun for several years yet. His mom had anticipated Xander being at least mid-twenties or so by the time the true changes would begin, but Xander’s actions at the end of the school year with Buffy had thrown off the entire timetable. He wanted to tell his friends now, to have the support as he tried to make sense of this new timeline, but his mom was so dreadfully afraid that he would die before he completed the transformation into a god.

Xander was desperately in need of advice, and so here he was, in an open graveyard at dusk preparing a ritual his mom had shown him, but never performed with him before. He set out the things he’d prepared. Blood was really too easy to find in this town, Xander thought absently as he poured a bottle of blood into the dirt. “Let the dead taste again,” he intoned. “Let them rise and take this offering. Let them remember.” He then dropped a tuna sandwich his mom had made onto the ground. Xander sacrificed another sandwich and poured out a large bag of chips as well just to be sure.

He began chanting in Ancient Greek, the language he’d spoken with his mom as a child. As he did so the teen focused on the cold power buried deep inside him. It was the power he’d grabbed with both hands to pull Buffy back from the dead, but for now he only needed a thread’s worth. The chant was pretty creepy even with Xander’s distracted state — lots of stuff about the dead and memories and returning from the grave. But hey, whatever worked, right?

And it did seem to be working. The grave started to bubble. Frothy reddish liquid rose to the top like the whole thing was filling with blood. The fog thickened. The sounds of the evening around him stopped. Almost a dozen figures appeared among the gravestones: bluish, vaguely human shapes. Xander scowled. He’d put too much power into it. He had only wanted a few. Or rather, he’d expected to have a few. He only wanted _one_.

“Are you here?” he called out, his power spilling unchecked into his voice. The shades had shivered and surged backwards at the sensation of that cold power. All of them but one. That single figure floated forward and knelt at the pool. It made slurping sounds as it drank. Its ghostly hands scooped chips out of the pool.

 When it stood again, Xander could see it much more clearly — a tall teen who was still in his gangly coltish stage. This teen smiled broadly at him.

“Xander!” Jesse exclaimed. “Woah, this is so cool!”

Xander nearly crumpled in relief. His lessons told him that the dead were often confused; unable to recognize things from their lives. But Xander had been banking on the fact that Jesse had only died a year ago, and his gamble had paid off.  Jesse took a worried step forwards.

“You okay, buddy?” he asked, hands fluttering uselessly as the ghost remembered they would likely go right through his friend.

Xander nodded, collecting his scattered thoughts after a minute or two. “Yeah, I’m okay. I just didn’t think this would actually _work_ ,” the teen admitted.

Jesse grinned, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “Yeah, well, it might not have worked. Your granddad knew what you were trying to do, so he helped out a bit. And seriously dude? How could you _forget_ to tell Willow and I that you’re the grandson of the King of the Dead?”

He grimaced. “Didn’t forget, I just- My mom didn’t think ordinary mortal children could keep secrets. I’ve wanted to tell you for years.”

“No big then,” Jesse shrugged. “What did you need me for, anyway?”

“Do you know anything of what happened after you died?” Xander knew the idea of the dead knowing all was a big misnomer, but he wasn’t sure to what extent it was inaccurate.

Jesse shrugged again. “Not much. I was in a pretty boring place. I think your granddad called it the Asphodel Plains?” He grinned at the recognition on Xander’s face. “Yeah, apparently I wasn’t heroic enough to make Heaven or evil enough to make Hell. The King told me that demon in my body is in the Fields of Punishment, though. He was going on about how nobody was allowed to hurt his darling grandson.”

His friend turned a broad, shit-eating grin on him and Xander socked him in the shoulder. The grin turned to astonishment when Xander’s hand actually bumped into the cool mass that was Jesse’s body. This time it was Xander who grinned like the devil.

“Prince of the Dead,” he mocked, wriggling his fingers. Then he remembered the time limit on his talk with Jesse. “Back to business, though.” He ignored Jesse’s snickers, unable to quell his own grin. Gods, but he’d missed his best friend.

“First, I wanted to make sure mom was right and your soul was sent on properly,” Xander admitted.

Jesse smiled. “Yeah, at first I was kinda stuck with the invisible in the Bronze-ness, but then that thing you and your mom did last month sent me on just fine. After that boat ride — and man, is your granddad’s boat guy cranky — I got sent to the Asphodel Plains, and I was just stuck chilling and being bored there until your granddad showed up and started going on about how you wanted to summon me and he was gonna allow it cause he wanted me to give you a bunch of messages.”

Xander perked up. “Grandfather has messages for me?”

Other than feeling the god’s Presence whenever he did heavy rituals, Xander had never interacted with his grandfather, what with them being in two separate universes and all. But sometimes when they did festival rites Xander would find presents on the gravestones, or his cousin Thanatos would show up for a chat, generally also bearing gifts. He knew his grandfather cared, but he’d never really connected that to the idea that the god might want to talk to the grandson he’d never met.

Jesse nodded; solemnly quiet all of a sudden. He reached into his jeans and pulled out a package much too large to fit in the place it had been stuffed. “I also got you goodies.” He dangled the box over Xander’s head by the ribbon tying it closed. Xander grabbed at it and scowled.

“Not cool, buddy,” he said, shaking a finger at the ghost. “Not cool at all. Now, messages?”

Jesse grinned. “Mostly just a “he loves you and is rooting for you to succeed in everything” sort of message, followed by a “stop doing reckless things like threatening master vampires”. And dude, when did you threaten a _master vampire_? Did you just misplace your sense of fear, or lose it entirely?”

Xander snickered. “It’s too long a story to tell right now. Maybe if you ask nicely Grandfather will tell you.” Jesse muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath. “Anyway, thanks bro. My second question is a bit more serious.” He took a deep breath and looked the ghost of his friend in the eye.

“Mom still doesn’t want me telling anybody about my powers, and all the other stuff, but I’m tired of lying to Willow and I really think I could trust Giles to not freak out too much on me. Buffy’s still iffy right now, but if Giles knows he can help me calm the girls down, so she’s not a problem. What would you suggest?”

Xander had been using Jesse and Willow as his “normal people” yardsticks for years, including grilling them with questions on moral issues. This was less of a moral issue and more of a trust thing, but it was still familiar territory to the resurrected teenage ghost. He pondered the dilemma.

“Well,” Jesse said slowly. “I’m probably biased, cause I want you to stay safe until you become the Dread King — cause I’m totally gonna be a guard in your undead castle, I hope you know that — but I would say don’t tell Buffy yet. Tell Willow, and swear her to silence on our friendship pact. If she still has problems, summon me again and I’ll wear her down. Once Willow is on your side she can help you figure out a safe strategy to sort of slip the information to the others on the low-down. Less fuss and less danger for you.”

The living teen nodded slowly. “Kay…” That did make sense. And it might solve the Willow problem if she didn’t freak too much. Jesse was starting to fade back to bluish and only vaguely human-shaped, anyway, so it wasn’t like his friend was gonna give any other advice.

“One more thing,” he said, grasping Jesse by the hand so that he surged to solidity so suddenly he was almost alive. Jesse stared at him with wide, shocked eyes. “Tell Grandfather…tell him I’m going to get started. With the court, and stuff. Just looking, but I have the feeling that mom’s whole wait-until-you’re-thirty plan has been massively derailed. So, if he could send me some sort of help, or other advice on that, it would be great.”

But then Jesse was disappearing again and Xander knew he couldn’t keep him unless he wanted to hurt his friend, so he let the other teen go. Jesse vanished with a grin and a thumb-up, which was strangely enough more reassuring than Xander thought it should be.

Xander stood alone in the middle of the graveyard, breathing shallowly as he watched the other specters fade to nothingness. The pool of blood sank back into the ground as though it had never existed, and normal outdoor noises started up in the cemetery again.

He heard someone clear their throat behind him and the teen nearly jumped out of his skin. Xander whirled around defensively; half expecting to be attacked by something yellow-eyed and fanged, but then he skidded to a halt.

It wasn’t a vampire.

No, this pale, gaunt man was very familiar, and was in no way looking for a tasty human-shaped blood snack. “Cousin Thana!” Xander exclaimed, stepping forwards in surprise. Thanatos smiled. He was dressed, unusually enough, in a rather modern suit. Ordinarily in this world he went all out with the creepy robes and stuff. And he was wearing his human face, not the skull mask.

Thanatos gave him a reserved smile. “Little princeling.”

“Can you _not_ call me that,” Xander whined. “I’m not that little.” Sure, he was like a million years younger than the other deity, but that didn’t mean Thanatos had to call him baby names!

His cousin smirked as if he knew what Xander was thinking. “You are to me, princeling.”

Xander’s mom had never been able to explain exactly how they were cousins with Death, but she assured him they were. Thanatos was one of the odd Powers in the multiverse. He didn’t quite fit in with any pantheon, and he existed in _every_ world, cycling between Aspects from universe to universe and pantheon to pantheon. Xander still laughed whenever he thought about his cousin’s long-haired incarnation. The guy had gone silver-haired in that world, too, and tended to be creepily obsessed with dead bodies, even for the embodiment of Death. But Thana seemed quite content to agree with Xander’s mom and claim them both as relatives, and he liked to stop by and make small talk between jobs.

“So what’s up with the suit, cuz? Not your usual look,” Xander returned with a grin.

Thanatos gave him a small smile. “I was in the middle of a job in another universe when I felt the energy of the Dread Prince permeate this realm. I hurried back to smooth things over. You’re lucky you didn’t attract undue attention with whatever occurred. It mostly seems to be down to the Hellmouth. I’d caution you to discover where it’s located and only perform powerful rituals nearby, so you continue to avoid the attention of those who would hunt you.” He paused. “And on that topic, you have, apparently, recently threatened a master vampire.” The smile morphed into a disapproving glare. “Care to explain that, Xander?”

“Heh, that…” Xander rubbed the back of his neck nervously. “Well, you see, I’m kind of friends with the current Slayer…”

Death’s gaze sharpened. “The Slayer?” he asked tightly. Xander nodded.

“Yeah, and there was this prophecy about how she was supposed to face this ancient vampire called the Master and die in the process. I had already lost one friend this year, and so when I heard they sent her out to _die_ … yeah, I kind of lost it. So then I…uh…” he looked at his cousin through his eyelashes and rushed his words, hoping that getting them all out at once would make the reaction less severe. “I kind of… broughtBuffybackfromthedead.”

His cousin’s eyes narrowed. “ _You_ were the one who brought the Vampire Slayer back from the dead? Do you have _any idea_ what that will do to the Slayer system?!? There’s a high chance another Slayer was called while she was comatose. You have _disrupted_ the balance of this world’s system.”

Xander cringed. “Yeah, I know, when I got home that night Mom gave me the grandfather of all lectures. That’s part of why I wanted to ask Jesse for advice.”

The entity hummed, shifting the rather plain scythe he held from one hand to the other. “I suppose what’s done is done,” he acknowledged discontentedly. “And the master vampire?”

This time the teen scowled rebelliously. “Angel’s not much of a _master_ vampire, if you ask me. If I wasn’t pretending to be normal I could take him. Probably even without using any overt powers.” Thanatos gave Xander a pointed look and he sighed. “Angel knew where the Master’s lair was, I didn’t. I got pissed because he was just sitting in his apartment waiting for Buffy to bite the dust because of that stupid prophecy. So I said some things, and I basically dared him to take me to Buffy.”

Now the entity looked displeased. “I shall have to…rectify his attitude. He should have never endangered you in such a way. You must be right about his power. Any master vampire worth his name would instantly be able to detect the aura of death and decay that surrounds you, and would treat you with the respect you deserve.”

“Way to make me sound like a zombie,” Xander muttered. Then- “And please don’t go and do the big brother threatening act on Angel. My friends don’t really know about me yet, and I don’t trust Deadboy not to blab.”

Death was displeased again. “If that is your wish,” he allowed. “But if he endangers you again I will take action.”

“Got it.” Xander didn’t doubt that Thanatos would keep his word, so he would have to man up and tell everyone something believable before Deadboy decided to get snarky with him again.  Joy.

“Are you truly serious in your desire to create your court so soon?”

The random question startled Xander out of his sour contemplation. “Wha- Oh. Yeah, I get the feeling I need to be. I may not have the influence you or mom do, but I can feel when I change the course of fate. I’m going to need my court sooner than we thought. I don’t know how or why, I just _know_ it. If that makes any sense.”

Thanatos smiled thinly. “It makes perfect sense, young princeling. Your powers are beginning to reveal themselves. Such things do not always translate well to the mortal mind.” The entity switched his scythe from hand to hand again and took a step closer to Xander.

“You know what all it entails?”

Xander blinked. “Uh…I think so? I know I need Furies, or some other sort of vengeance god servants. I have to petition Grandfather once I’ve earned my symbol of power, and possibly Zeus too. I need a ferryman, and some guards, and I probably ought to choose a ruler for Elysium before I begin moving souls over the River. Speaking of the River, I need nymphs for all the Rivers of Hades because the original girls all migrated over with Grandfather and the other Greeks. And I need Death,” he added, glancing nervously over at his cousin. The entity merely smiled.

“I am at your service, my little king. Having watched you grow up has made me quite fond of you. I do not think I could refuse you anything.” And with those words Death’s gaunt and lanky form swept into an elegant kneeling bow, his scythe held in the palms of his hands in front of him and his head bent.

“Thana?” Xander asked aloud, a bit alarmed.

“ _I swear myself to you, child of the Underworld, godling in a human shell, one who is both alive and dead. I give you my scythe, to be used only according to your edicts. I give you my self, to be directed by your will. Name me, Heir of Hades._ **Name me, my chosen Dread King!** ”

Xander gasped. He didn’t quite know what was going on. It was as if the outside world had fallen away, leaving this tiny patch of graveyard intact. They were surrounded by an oozing darkness that seemed to have some strange life to it, full as it was with dark laughter and vicious amusement. Xander suddenly remembered that one of the theories about Death’s origins named him as the son of Nyx, the primordial of Darkness and Night.

“ **Name me!** ” the entity demanded again. Xander couldn’t tell what he looked like any longer, as Death’s features shifted and changed to match the various forms he had taken throughout the universes.

“I…Death!” Xander blurted out. Once he had spoken, he instantly knew what to say. He mentally went through the studies his mom had made him do on chthonic deities and creatures in various cultures.

“I name you **Thanatos** , my Angel of Death. You are Shinigami-sama and Viduus, the Black Dog of lost souls, Reaper King of the di inferni.” He stepped forwards and placed his hands over the scythe still being held out to him. “You are my cousin and brother, the Pale Rider. You are the one who will consume All, leaving only my kingdom at the end of time.”

Power swept through him and around him, unlike anything Xander had ever known. Death stood, and Xander marveled at the changes in him. The entity was still gaunt and pale and man-like, but his hair was now almost entirely black with one long braid of silver. His eyes were a strange lizard-like green, his features foreign and refined. He wore the same suit, but now he had a long cloak over it. His scythe had grown to an incredible size, and the bone blade was elaborately and elegantly engraved. Thanatos smiled again, more warmly than before.

“Congratulations, Xander. You have begun the creation of your kingdom.”

And just as abruptly the night was back, graveyard full of nocturnal noises once again. The oppressive darkness vanished into the comforting dimness of space and starlight. Thanatos drew Xander into a hug.

“Your grandfather is very proud of you,” the entity murmured. “And so am I.” There was a sighing wind and then Death was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed. This story was really a result of two things: my enjoyment of Xander-has-secret-special-relatives stories and a desire to write a "new pantheon" scenario in the Riordanverse. It kind of...exploded from there. Several years ago. I swear the story ideas have been breeding behind my back since then. Sometimes I think this story's alive.
> 
> Like my other long fic, The Problem with Soulmarks Is, I will be updating once monthly. Unlike Soulmarks, this fic will be updated at the end/beginning of every month. Either on the 30th or right on the 1st. That may change depending on how difficult it is for me to maintain two stories at once. Soulmarks will remain my priority, but for now I'm going to see how balancing two stories at once goes.
> 
> If you want something more of mine to read before then, check out my other fics: I've got a few different one and two-shot stories, and that one long Harry Potter epic as aforementioned. Give me feedback if you liked this concept!
> 
> Ja ne!


	2. Part 1, Legacy: Secrets Revealed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter Xander's mom reveals a long-kept secret, and Giles is informed of the whole Xander being a baby god thing.

Of course, the moment Xander was totally alone and at peace was the moment a vampire decided to try her luck at jumping him. The teen dodged almost on instinct, tripping over a low and weathered headstone.

“Gah!”

His limbs flailed and he bemoaned his luck. Xander had used almost too much divine power tonight for his body to handle any more, and he didn’t have any stakes. He hadn’t planned on being out long enough to need any. And with the way Xander’s luck was running, his mom was probably out looking for him by now. Yaay.

Cold hands gripped him tightly by the back of his black hoodie, and Xander flailed, trying hard to get away before his latent Hades-given demigod power instinctively sucked the life out of the vampire holding him. While inadvertently dusting the vamp lady would be convenient, it would likely knock Xander out for the rest of the night. Unexpectedly, the vampire squealed and cringed back, the hand clutching his hoodie disappearing.

Xander tried to regain his bearings in vain. A dark blur appeared out of nowhere and suddenly the vamp lady was dust. A familiar pale undead face scowled at him.

“What are you doing here, Xander?” Angel demanded, looming over Xander. The teen drew back defensively.

“It’s not any of your business, Deadboy. Free cemetery.”

The souled vampire scowled harder. The brooding was almost visible. “Don’t be stupid. It’s hours after sundown.”

The teenager jerked in surprise. Hours? “That’s ridiculous,” he retorted. “It was dusk not even thirty minutes ago.”

Angel looked at Xander like the teen had hit his head on something. “It’s almost midnight.”

Uh.

Oops?

Xander’s mom was going to kill him.

The vampire was still watching him intently. “You didn’t know.” Those dark eyes narrowed. “What were you doing in a graveyard right after dusk?”

His mouth opened to once again remind Deadboy that it was none of his damn business, when things got even worse. He heard his mom.

“Xander!”

She had apparently spotted him now and was opening the gate and making her way into the cemetery. Unlike Angel she noticed the empty bloodstained bottle and the lunch bag discarded on the ground from earlier. Xander could see her eyes flickering about, making the obvious conclusions. Then she looked at Angel with narrowed eyes.

“Excuse me?” she asked. “Do I know you?”

Angel frowned at her. “Who are you?” he said bluntly back.

“This is my mom,” Xander cut in hastily. “Deadboy, mom. Mom, this is Deadboy. He’s a friend of a friend at school. I may have mentioned him once or twice.” Make that complained about the unfairness of Buffy liking unhelpful older guys who perved on teenage girls. “We can go home now if you want. Sorry I was out so late; I lost track of time.” He tugged his mom’s arm.

Xander’s mother didn’t budge.

“You’re not high school age,” she said suspiciously.

“No, I’m not.” And Angel was completely unhelpful as usual.

His mom’s frown melted into something more uncertain. “You’re very…familiar.”

“I really doubt that.”

Xander had the urge to face palm. “I doubt you’ve met him before, mom. Angel’s just got one of those faces.” The guy’s emotional range was certainly bland enough to be forgettable.

“ _Angel?_ ” Or apparently not, as his mom was now gaping in disbelief, clear recognition in her eyes. “You haven’t changed a bit!”

Now it was Angel who was the suspicious one. “I’m sure we’ve never met, ma’am.”

“Have I really changed that much?” his mom asked with the sad smile she always had when she was reminded of her human condition. “It’s me, Makaria.” Now it was Angel who was standing there with his jaw hanging.

The teenager still standing between the two adults was now totally confused. His mom _never_ gave out her real name. She preferred to always use the human alias Jessica, claiming that there was no need for the goddess of blessed death in this world. Xander knew it was really because remembering made her sad.

“Uh, mom?” Xander asked timidly. She turned to look at her son. “You and Angel know each other?”

She threaded her fingers together under her chin the way she did when she was uneasy or uncertain. “He’s — we were friends when I was living in Chicago.” Xander’s mouth fell open and then snapped shut again, head turning between his mom and the vampire. He’d been conceived in Chicago, Xander thought dazedly.

“Friends like you went out for drinks together sometimes or…um…”

Angel looked rather amused at the stupefied look Xander knew had overtaken his face. “We did a bit more than go for _drinks_ , Xander.” He threw Xander’s mom a fond glance. “I recognize you now. You look…very different.”

That was true. Xander had seen the few pictures his mom had taken of herself when she first arrived in this universe. Her dark blood-red hair had been long and unbound then, her pale face clear and youthful and as beautiful as her mother’s. Now her hair was cut short and permed, and her face was lined and shadowed with the hardships of her human life. Xander still couldn’t wrap his mind around the logical conclusion from this. No _way_ was Angel…

“So, what sort of demon are you?”

And trust Xander’s mom to change the subject like _that_. If Angel didn’t have the facial expressions of a block of concrete Xander would have said he seemed bewildered.

“What?”

Xander’s mom smiled. “Oh, Xander told me all about vampires and demons and other creatures. It’s been quite educational. I knew you weren’t human before, of course, but I could never figure out what you were, and you never asked about what species I was so I just assumed you didn’t want to talk about it.”

Angel shot a swift, confused frown at Xander. “You’re not human?”

Makaria blinked. “Well, no. I thought you knew. I mean, even in this vessel I still register as a low-level demigod.”

“Demigod.” Deadboy seemed to be in shock.

“Actually,” Xander cut in gleefully. “She’s a minor death goddess. And I’m a slightly more god than demigod…well, dhampir, I guess, if you two really met in Chicago.” He made a face. This was not how he’d expected to spend his late evening.

And now Angel had brought a hand up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “You’re a _goddess_. Wait.” His eyes flew open and he _stared_ at Xander. “Dhampir?” he asked faintly.

Xander turned to his mom. “Right? I mean, I assume that’s what you meant by saying the two of you were friends in Chicago.” Please let me be wrong, please let me be wrong…

His mom nodded, oblivious to Xander’s dismay. “Yes, Angel’s your father.” Xander’s eyes closed in horror at having been correct, and Angel looked like he was about to fall over. Well, that was one good thing about this fiasco. And hey, his mom hadn’t mentioned Dread Princes or Hades yet, so they still might get through the night without all his secrets being outed.

“Father.” Angel seemed to be in a sort of stupor.

Xander rolled his eyes. “Yes, that’s wonderful, now mom and I really need to get back. I would like to see my bed sometime tonight.”

Angel suddenly shook off his confusion and rounded on Xander. “What were you doing here, anyway? You could have been killed!”

“You were summoning, weren’t you?” his mom suddenly cut in. Angel was brought up short.

“Summoning?”

Xander squirmed internally. “I just wanted to make sure Lemuralia went well, mom,” he said softly. “Gramps sent me a present, and I guess I lost track of time.”

His mom’s eyes shadowed at the mention of her father, but that didn’t dim her curiosity any. “Father sent you a gift?”

Angel let out a strangled noise and both Harrises turned to look at him. The vampire was wide-eyed. “Uh, who exactly would your grandfather be?”

Xander’s mom blinked and she said “Why, Hades of course,” as if it was perfectly obvious. Xander gave into temptation and buried his face in his hand for a moment before looking up at Angel with a glare.

“You’re not going to tell Buffy,” he said forcefully.

Angel looked annoyed despite his lingering shock, his eyes narrowing at Xander’s tone. “Aren’t I?”

Xander glared, and with a strangely detached amazement realized he could feel that same power he’d felt earlier rising in him again. He could feel Thana as if the entity of Death was standing behind him. The teen couldn’t see himself, but if he had he would know why Angel suddenly took several quick steps backwards. The air around Xander was darkening as if his very presence sucked out the light. The sounds of the night vanished and fog formed to coil around the teen’s legs. Angel almost thought he could hear tortured, dying screams in his ears.

“You _will_ _not_ tell Buffy,” Xander hissed. “You will hold your silence, _vampire_!” The vampire in question was watching Xander wide-eyed with some strange primal fear. He had forgotten to breathe. “I don’t care if you’re my father, you will _obey me_!”

“Okay.”

The word was whispered and almost broken, Angel’s eyes huge in his usually expressionless face. Xander glared and the man took another several steps backwards before breaking into a run. He leapt over a fence and vanished into the night. The teen stood still, breathing heavily, and then what he’d done filtered through his brain. The terrifying aura disappeared and Xander gave his mom a sheepish look.

“Oops?”

She wasn’t exasperatedly annoyed this time, though. His mom was staring at him in horror. “Xander…” A hand went up to her mouth. “Oh Xander,” she whispered. “What have you done?”

The teen frowned at his mother. “Mom? Is something wrong?”

She pointed to him with a shaking finger. “You-you’re wearing a Mantle of Souls.”

Xander whirled in a circle, looking down at his clothes. He was wearing the exact same outfit he’d entered this graveyard wearing, except — Xander gaped at his hoodie. It was just a black cotton jacket that zipped down the front. The teen liked it for its deep pockets and dark colors, which he rarely wore because his mom was paranoid someone would get suspicious if the two of them always dressed like members of the Addams family. There were little grey skulls around the hem and on the sleeves and hood. He’d tied a death charm to the zipper ages ago, and it hung down like a weird pendant.

Or at least, that was what his hoodie _used_ to look like. Now it was of a fine fabric that was clearly otherworldly in creation. It somehow had an elegant look despite still being a casual hoodie jacket, and his death charm had turned into a tie that would hold the jacket on even if it was just draped over his shoulders. But those weren’t the most drastic changes. The fabric itself was black, with a silvery-blue glow to it. And the threads writhed, as if his jacket was alive. Or as if it was made of living things.

Xander had heard of the Mantle of Souls. It was a staple of most underworld deities. The Mantle was one of his grandfather’s most understated symbols, overshadowed by his helmet and the Cerberus. The Mantle of Souls was a himation, or sometimes some other type of over-robe or sash woven of the souls of the damned; Hades’ own Mantle had been a gift from the Furies when they had first been recruited to the side of the Dread King. And somehow, it was now on Xander’s back in the shape of a jacket. Well, this one was probably a new version made just for him. He wondered if his grandfather had been involved in its creation. That would be…really cool, actually. It gave him a warm fuzzy feeling inside.

The teen looked up at his mom, who was still staring at him in horror and bewilderment. Xander grimaced.

“Can it wait 'til we get home?” he asked. “This is gonna be a long story.”

*          *          *

In the end, Xander’s mother finally agreed to let Xander tell Giles — and only Giles. He still wanted to tell Willow, but his mom didn’t like the idea. She’d never been too fond of Willow, though Xander didn’t know why. But for now he’d do as his mom asked and not tell her until after he’d made sure Giles wasn’t going to send Buffy after them. And so here he was the day after Giles returned from England, standing nervously outside the man’s apartment.

Xander shifted awkwardly in place as the door opened. Giles was just as stiff as ever, but the man apparently relaxed a little in the summer, as he was wearing jeans and an ordinary t-shirt instead of his usual tweed. The librarian looked surprised to see Xander standing nervously on his doorstep.

“Xander? Is something wrong?”

The teen shook his head. “No, not…wrong, just…” He worried his lip between his teeth. “Something came up, and I finally got permission to talk to you about it.”

That made Giles frown. “Permission?” he asked carefully. Xander grimaced.

“My mom. She’s really touchy, but I finally convinced her everything would be easier with you helping…Can I come in? It’s kind of a long story.”

Giles was frowning even more now, but the man still stepped aside and easily let Xander in. As Xander crossed the threshold without spoken permission something in the librarian eased, and Giles led Xander to sit on one of the couches in the living room area. Xander was a bit surprised himself by that one act of caution. He’d known that Buffy suspected him of being a vampire at first, but he hadn’t realized Giles might still have those kinds of worries. But Xander put that out of his mind, his hand slipping into the bag he’d brought with him that hid the Mantle of Souls. It felt weird not wearing it, like he was naked or something, so the teen hadn’t been able to resist bringing it in some fashion.

Giles sat down in a worn armchair across from him and clasped his hands together. “Well?” the man asked. “What is this all about?”

Xander hummed uncertainly. “Do you remember when you were asking me a bunch of stuff about my family last year?”

“We-well yes, I suppose I do,” the librarian stammered.

“Yeah, see, I think you misunderstood something when I was explaining, but mom was mad enough when she heard I’d told you anything at all, so she made me promise I wouldn’t correct you then. Only something has come up, so I can explain now.”

“Alright…” Giles was clearly confused and at a loss to follow Xander’s admittedly disjointed rambling.

“So, when I told you my mom was a daughter of Polydegmon, what did you think I meant by that?”

Giles blinked. “I assumed your mother was a priestess for Hades,” he said slowly. “Was I incorrect?” Xander grimaced.

“Only a lot,” he said. “Daughter was literal, not figurative. My mom is Makaria, the daughter of Hades and Persephone and goddess of blessed deaths.” Giles began cleaning his glasses with a vengeance.

“A-a goddess?” he asked, clearly hoping he’d misheard.

Xander nodded.

“Then that would make you a-a-”

“Demigod,” Xander cut in. Giles jumped a bit. “Technically.”

Giles eyed Xander. “Technically?”

Xander exhaled noisily. “How about I start at the beginning?” After Giles nodded his assent Xander began his tale. He started with the ancient Greek gods and their rule over the multiverses. There had been other gods, of course. Two different sets of Egyptian gods had once held sway (and only one incarnation had actually counted as “gods”), and both the Asgard and many other pantheons had actually been alien incursions that parlayed with the Olympians, though their antics had eventually given rise to proper godly pantheons born of their cults. Xander then jumped into talking about the Powers That Be. He explained how they had believed the old gods were abusing their powers, and so had declared war on them. The Powers that Be had pushed the Olympians into one singular, isolated universe and had tricked the Egyptian magicians into imprisoning their true gods by claiming they were usurpers (this was long after the false Egyptian gods were driven out, of course). He told Giles all the problems the Powers had created when they moved in, and then he paused.

“Now for a bit of a change in pace,” Xander said. Sometime during Xander’s speech Giles had begun looking through some of his older books he kept in his apartment, and had been taking notes as well, which Xander thought was hilarious. He had to keep from snickering when his next words made the librarian hold up his pen and paper eagerly.

“Now,” the teen said, “I’m going to tell you about my mom.”

Makaria was one of three deities directly associated with Hades and Persephone. Her sister was the child of Persephone and Zeus (who had disguised himself as his brother), and her brother’s heritage was…complicated, and as a result Makaria was the only true, clearly stated godly child of Hades. As such, she held a special place in the Underworld, and was given much preferential treatment.

When Makaria had existed for a thousand years or so, she decided she wanted to see the human world. The goddess pleaded with both her father and her grandmother Demeter in order to secure a chance to leave her gloomy home, but finally her wish was granted. The goddess lived out a single life as a human, and when her shell died she returned to the Underworld in godly form. This soon became a tradition of hers. Every few centuries Makaria would live out a human life, connecting with her few half-human siblings and exploring the newest innovations and progresses made by humankind. She would then spend the next several decades regaling everyone in the Underworld with her adventures above.

In one such instance in the 1800s Makaria had even gone to the newly formed Camp Halfblood and had also spent a year or so at Camp Jupiter as well. It was during this visit that tragedy struck. A group of suspicious Romans had decided she was a spy for the Greeks and had chased her down for weeks. Makaria had only escaped through sheer luck, using the shadow travel singular to chthonic gods and demigods to evade the group of rabid halfbloods. But her luck couldn’t last. Exhausted by days of ceaseless travel, Makaria tried one last jump, but was thrown off by a son of Janus, whose power to affect boundaries reacted badly with Makaria’s shadow travel. She was ripped from her universe and dumped in an entirely new world.

Makaria awoke in this new universe to find herself still trapped in her human shell. That human body was the only thing keeping her hidden from the influences of the Powers That Be, so she didn’t even try to regain her godly powers. She then spent the next few years searching desperately for a way home, and setting herself up in this world as a protective measure against the Powers. Unfortunately, there turned out to be no way to simply travel from this universe back to the one dominated by the Olympians and their allied pantheons without destroying both universes in the process.

“So your mother moved to the _Hellmouth_?” Giles cut in incredulously. Xander shook his head.

“Mom had no idea what a “hellmouth” was until I told her. All she could detect was some sort of dimensional portal that felt like it had hell energy, and come on, my mom was raised in the Underworld. Hell energy is _normal_ for her.”

Giles frowned at that, scribbling something onto his notes. “So she moved here because it felt familiar?”

Xander shook his head. “N-no…it was a little bit more complicated than that. Y’see, the problem with demigods of Hades is the fact that they’re basically half dead. That so-called health problem I have? It’s basically standard for any part-human child with a connection to Hades. Hades himself can sire properly living children despite this minor issue, but all his children and most of the other chthonic Greek deities have serious issues bearing or siring live children. Because Mom _is_ a death goddess when she’s not pretending to be human, she especially has issues bearing offspring. My birth should have been even less likely than normal because I’m less than half human.  Before arriving to this world, Mom had never had either a demigod or a godly child because she’s always been just a bit too close to the dead side of things.”

“I’m not following you,” Giles told him. “What does this have to do with your mother’s reasons for moving to the Hellmouth?”

The teen sighed. “The problem is that mom doesn’t see anything weird about associating with nonhumans. So when she meets some in this world, she just goes about as normal 'cause they can’t hurt her anyway, so why care? But then she decided to date a vampire despite not knowing exactly what he was. And apparently the only thing that can get around a death goddess’s “deadness” and create new life is a living entity hitching a ride inside a dead thing. And so here I am.”

At some point during this explanation Giles’ jaw had unhinged. It snapped shut as Xander finished speaking. He set down his notes and began cleaning his glasses again.

“Xander.”

The man’s voice was strained. “Do you mean to tell me that you are both half god and half vampire?”

Xander nodded. “And because vampires aren’t human, for all that they live in human corpses, I’m more on the lines of demon-plus-plus or godling than demigod. Like Dionysus. Or Hercules.” Giles pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yeah, it doesn’t get much better from there,” Xander said sympathetically. “See, mom can’t take over this universe’s Underworld 'cause she’s not got enough power. She’d basically go boom if she ever tried and would probably cause a mass zombie rising in the process all across the planet. But she figured out that if she raised a mostly-godling over the Hellmouth I’d absorb a bunch of energy needed to make me a god powerful enough to match…I dunno, Apollo. Or Cousin Hermes. And then if I was sponsored by Thanatos, I could gain the rest of the power on my own and basically become king of the dead.”

Giles was openly staring. “Your mother raised you with the express purpose of making you king of the dead,” the man summarized flatly.

Oddly enough, Giles didn’t seem to like that. Xander wasn’t quite sure he understood what had upset the man.

“Well…yeah. I mean, once I’ve got that much power I could send her home. As a King of the Underworld, I will have the authority to enter the Underworlds of other pantheons, which means I’ll be able to open a gateway to my grandfather’s kingdom.” He paused. “Gods _are_ inherently selfish, you know,” he pointed out when his previous statements only made Giles look mad.

“And it’s not like it’s all for her. Her pregnancy was a total accident. She was just making the best of it afterwards, and if I’m king of the dead _nobody_ will mess with me, so she’ll have ensured her kid exists for basically the rest of time.”

Giles sighed, still not looking quite settled. “I suppose,” he allowed. The normally mild-mannered librarian pinned Xander with a piercing look.

“What reason do you have for wanting me to know all of this, Xander?” he asked. “I highly doubt you would tell me and expect me to keep it a secret.”

Xander cringed. “Well, part of it is that I need you to ride herd on Buffy. I may have to recruit some…usually slay-able people to become king of the dead. I need Furies, for one, and demons or vampires _would_ make the best vengeance gods, even if I hate the idea of working with a vampire. And I want your help figuring out a way to explain all this so that Buffy won’t stake me and Willow won’t hate me. Please?”

He applied puppy dog eyes for extra effect. Thankfully Giles didn’t seem to have any immunity at all (his mom always just laughed and told him he had nothing on hellhounds) and so the man quickly caved.

“I-I suppose we may be able to work something out.” Then the man got quiet again, and sat and thought for several long minutes. “I do have one request before we do anything else though, Xander.”

“Yeah, G-man? What’s that?”

Giles winced at Xander’s flippant nickname, but quickly became businesslike.

“I want to meet your mother,” he said firmly.

Xander’s mouth opened and closed wordlessly. He had no way to express how terrible he thought this idea was, but Giles looked completely serious.

“Oh, _hell_.”

Giles’ lips quirked into an amused smile. “Isn’t that kind of the point of our discussion?”

Xander once again gave into temptation and buried his face in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a wrap. Hope you all enjoyed! I'll be posting the next chapter around March 1, if I can get the editing done in time. Next time on Prince of Death: Summer's End and the first introduction of Willow to the story. See you then!


	3. Part 1, Legacy: Summer's End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild Willow appears. Buffy returns from a summer spent with her dad, but Xander's worried about her attitude. In addition, he has to figure out how to keep his secrets when all he wants to do is blurt them out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, funny thing. I'm posting this on the 27th, but Archive insists it's only the 26th and won't let me put down my current date. Archive's date calculator is weird. Meh, I'll post it and change it to the right date after the fact, if I decide to care that much.

Amazingly enough, the meeting between Giles and Xander’s mom happened with only minimal fireworks. His mom even managed to wrangle a promise from the man to hide all the information she and Xander gave him from the Watcher’s Council until told otherwise. Giles did seem to agree that the Council knowing would be a Bad Thing. Apparently they took a dim view of gods or demons trying to gain extra power, even if it was only to fill in a natural hole in the universe like Xander planned to do.

Sometime afterwards Xander had been sorting through things in his bedroom and had realized he’d forgotten to open the gift from his grandfather that Jesse had given him. The gift itself was an innocuous box wrapped in plain silvery paper, a single black ribbon tied around it. Xander had to grin at the small bouquet of pomegranate flowers tucked into the bow. Despite being several days old they were still fresh.

He fished the flowers out delicately, pouting a bit as his touch started the withering process. “Thanks, Grandma,” he whispered into the blossoms. At his words most of them withered to dust, but one swelled into an actual pomegranate, its hard shell larger than his hand. Xander set that treat aside, planning to cut it open and eat it later. He knew from experience that if he rationed it the fruit of the Underworld would last him a good month or two.

Then Xander’s attention was turned to the package itself. He made short work of the fancy wrapping and ribbon, and pulled the lid off the plain white box. The teen sat down as he pulled out the contents. Inside was a single black pen, a whistle on a Celestial Bronze chain that looked like it was made of ice, and a folded letter.

Xander pulled out the letter first. It was written in his grandfather’s familiar blocky Greek script.

_My dearest Grandson,_

_I have heard tales of your exploits from the recently deceased of your hometown, both human and demonic. The Slayer is known to me. In days of old she was considered an acolyte of my worship (such as it was) for the Slayer kills indiscriminately amongst the nonhuman forces which might otherwise exist for centuries long. Gaining an alliance with her is very well done indeed. I should warn you that Thanatos was most vexed when you brought her back to life. I know you likely did not realize she was quite so far into death until it was too late for you to abort your actions, but it may have grave consequences on the world order all the same. It is entirely likely that another Slayer was called in the moments when Miss Summers was dead. Also, you should be careful of your Slayer friend’s mental state. The methods you used to stuff her back into her body were very rudimentary, and may have added to her death trauma._

_If you don’t wish a repeat it would behoove you to begin assembling your Court. With every member you gain your powers will grow. Having Death swear fealty will increase your connection with death and the dying, for example. You will be able to sense when a person is within a year of death. You also may be able to detect whether a person is heavily involved with death, but not personally dying, as would be the case with vampires. Swearing in other servants will net you other powers: the Furies will increase your powers on earth, while a ferryman will give you power over the Underworld. Claiming minor gods and goddesses under your banner will increase your overall influence and power._

_As for your plans to petition Zeus…well, I would feel more comfortable if you did not. I do care for my brother, but he is a jealous king and does not share power easily. The fact that you are a descendant of mine would not go in your favor, I fear, for he is eternally suspicious of me. He does not believe I could be content with my own kingdom. No, I would suggest you instead appeal to Zagreus, your uncle. You will have to ask your mother for his full story to understand why, as it is far too long for a letter. I would wait to ask her until you need it, however. Makaria adored Zagreus and has never forgotten his Fading._

_I also feel compelled to warn you to be careful with the vampire Angelus. I only know of his exploits through his victims, but while the soul Liam is rather pathetic, the demon is most definitely not. And if I ever hear of you threatening a Master Vampire without significant assurance as to your safety I will find a way to tear through the dimensions and smack you around. Honestly, you are my grandson, not Poseidon’s! Kindly don’t imitate my idiot brother’s stupid bullheadedness, please, to spare your grandmother’s nerves if nothing else._

_Speaking of Barnacle Beard, I borrowed an idea from him for your gift. The pen is a surprise. I will say only two things: it is made of Stygian iron, and when you click the pen make sure to point it away from your body. The whistle is of Stygian Ice, and it should summon you a hellhound. It is a one-use-only gift, as the whistle will shatter once blown into. Only use it in dire situations, because while no hellhound would dare harm you, I can’t say whether it would refrain from eating your friends. Just keep that in mind._

_Best wishes,_

_Hades_

Well. That…was certainly an info dump, Xander thought in a bit of a daze. That bit about Angel was weird. Who was Liam? He wondered how badly it would annoy his _dad_ (the concept still made him shudder) if he mentioned it. And he wished he’d read that stuff about growing powers before Thanatos had sworn to him. It certainly explained the Mantle of Souls. That was definitely associated with death. It also explained some other things that Xander had begun noticing.

He’d begun to get a sort of… _vibe_ from people as he walked around. Most people had a really weak vibe, but he’d noticed that one of his mom’s friends had it really strong. The guy was a doctor for terminal illnesses, so if he could sense people who were surrounded by death a lot that explained this guy’s vibe. It was like pain tinged with grief. Xander wondered what a vampire would feel like.

Xander looked down at his two gifts and picked up the Stygian Ice whistle gingerly. Yikes. He had a hellhound whistle. The teen tied it around his neck and resolved to only use it if someone had died. He couldn’t just say “end of the world” because that sort of stuff happened once a week on the Hellmouth.

This pen though was definitely more interesting. Xander held the pen as far away from his body as he could and he gingerly clicked the end. The boy gaped as, instead of a writing nib popping out of the end, the entire thing reformed into a sword. It was a cool sword too, all-black metal with a totally awesome bone hilt. The pommel was made of what looked like a tiny dinosaur skull. And the letter had said the blade was made of Stygian iron, meaning the only metal able to kill both mortal creatures and beings under the aegis of the gods. Xander grinned.

“Okay,” he allowed. “This is fabulous.”

The next day Xander was knocking on Giles’ door again. The man opened it less warily this time. Now he just looked tired.

“Planning to upend my entire worldview again, Xander?” he asked. Xander laughed.

“Nah, I’ll save that for next week. I want you to teach me how to use a sword.”

Giles blinked very hard, a dumbfounded expression on his face. “I-I beg your pardon?”

“You. Me. Pointy metal thing you stick in bad guys—”

“Yes, I did understood that part,” Giles cut in. “Might I ask your reasoning? It is rather sudden.”

Xander gave the man a wicked grin and Giles began cleaning his glasses and muttering about evil demigod children. Xander just brandished his pen. “My granddad gave me cool presents!” he exclaimed with glee. He clicked the pen and Giles flinched back for a brief instant. Then, the man’s eyes lit up and Xander could almost believe Giles was a real human instead of a tweedy Watcher robot.

“I-I-is that Stygian iron?” he asked eagerly. Xander nodded proudly. Giles eyed him. “Why don’t you step inside? I’ll fetch one of my swords and we can practice down in the park.”

Xander pumped his fist in the air and cheered.

The last month of the summer passed in a blur of swordwork and Xander discovering the boundaries of his new powers. He did his best to make time for Willow, as always, but he somehow had less opportunity to spend his days and evenings with her. Xander actually saw Angel more than he saw Willow, which totally sucked.

The vampire had taken to following him around, Xander was sure, because Angel seemed to appear every time Xander decided to go haunt another graveyard (ha, ha, _haunt_ ), or sneak into the morgue to guess at the auras he could feel. He’d even given in a time or two and made small talk with the emotionless jerk (seriously, was his face frozen that way or something?) but for the most part he just pretended his vampiric shadow didn’t exist. The one thing Xander had to admit was that Angel was pretty smart. When he started talking about the auras of death he was learning to decipher, Angel had compared it to a vampire’s sense of smell in a way that totally clicked in Xander’s head. After that conversation he understood his death senses twice as well, but he’d never tell Deadboy that.

As the summer drew to a close Xander tried one more time to deliberately make time for Willow. He met her at the arcade, where they played a bunch of games and ate pizza and generally goofed around. They both had a few awkward moments where they forgot the third member of their usual arcade team was no longer present, but Xander powered through every reminder of Jesse. They even went for ice cream afterwards, and walked towards Willow’s house still laughing and fooling around.

Xander grinned at his stammering friend. “It’s your turn,” he prodded her. Willow waffled a bit before answering.

“I, alright, okay, uh... ‘In the few hours that we had together, we loved a lifetime’s worth’,” she quoted. Xander laughed and took a lick from his melting ice cream cone.

“Terminator,” he shot out.

Willow nodded with an answering grin. “Good! Great,” she said.

Now Xander had to think a minute. “Um, oh, okay, I got one.” He smirked as he started his quote. “It’s a madhouse! A mad-”

“Planet of the Apes!” Willow cut in. Xander rolled his eyes, a bit put out.

“Willow! Interruptions much?” he bantered. This was an old game, worn and familiar in all the right places. Even without Jesse it was fun and easy. Xander was enjoying just being normal for once this summer. Willow had no aura of death around her, and even the now-constant presence of the Mantle of Souls (currently tied around Xander’s waist) didn’t lessen this nostalgic moment.

Willow was instantly apologetic over interrupting him. “Oh! Sorry, go ahead.” But contrary to what his usual response would have been, Xander just shrugged.

“Nah, it’s okay. I quote that movie all the time. You got anything?”

“Oh,” Willow looked stumped. “Me. Uh...”

Xander smirked. “Well?” he asked.

Willow smiled up at him sheepishly. “I’m thinking ‘Use the Force, Luke’,” she admitted. Xander groaned and rolled his eyes.

“Do I even have to dignify that with a guess?” he asked. The redhead shrugged.

“I couldn’t think of anything. It’s a dumb game anyway,” she said. Willow was always the first one to duck out of kiddie games. Or games where she was losing. Oh well.

“Well, what else do you wanna do?” Xander wanted to know. “We already played rock-paper-scissors. My hands cramped up.” Of course, that was probably more from the arcade games, but…

Willow laughed, as had been his intention. “Well, yes,” she said playfully, “if you’re always scissors of course your tendons are gonna strain-”

Xander frowned and looked off to one side as his death senses went haywire. Then he noticed the graveyard and relaxed. Welcome to Sunnydale, the only place where graveyards were good news! Willow clearly noticed his sudden distraction.

“Xander?” she asked.

The teen in question smiled at her easily. “It’s nothing, Willow. Just thought I saw something. Don’t worry about it.”

He still wanted to tell his oldest friend about his powers, but surprisingly Giles was backing his mom up about the ixnay on the odsgay. Giles wanted them to sit Willow and Buffy down and explain it in bits and pieces, starting with his mom and expanding to include all the other details eventually. So here Xander was, lying to his best friend again.

Thankfully Willow didn’t seem to notice his discomfort.

“You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I don’t think I’ve seen any vampires or stuff at all this summer.” She stepped over to the wall and hopped up to sit on it. Xander grimaced.

“I have, actually. Only a few though. Most of them probably cleared out when the Master died.”

Willow grinned. “Yeah, and that would be totally thanks to a certain girl we both know who is a Vampire Slayer.”

“Yep!” Xander said. He hesitated. He’d actually not heard from Buffy at all, which had been rather hurtful. The only grace was that Angel hadn’t heard from her either. “Did she, uh, mention when she might be getting back? About which I do not care,” he added hastily.

The redhead shrugged. “I haven’t heard from her,” she said thoughtfully. “I got a couple postcards when she went to L.A., but then, like, nothing.” She sounded more put out about that than Xander felt about not hearing from her at all. Willow must really like having a female friend to do girl things with.

“Well, she’s probably with her dad having a good time,” Xander said bracingly. Willow gave him a knowing look.

“And you don’t care?” she asked pointedly. Xander rolled his eyes.

“Well, okay,” he allowed, “there might be some interest.” Buffy was hot. Of course, the whole pulling her back from the dead was a dampener on his crush. It kind of killed the mood when thinking of the cute girl also made you think of death and creepy caves. _And_ she had the hots for his dad, which was just eew. But Xander kept talking just to mess with Willow. “I’m a man. I have certain desires, certain needs...”

And that got the reaction he’d expected. “Nuh-uh! I don’t wanna know!” Willow exclaimed, waving her hands around. Xander smirked. Then he frowned and untied his jacket, slipping his arms into it and letting his Mantle guard his senses from the heavy aura of death surrounding them.

Willow eyed his jacket with curiosity. “Is that new?” she asked.

Xander nodded. “Present from my grandfather,” he said. He could tell her little things, right? Willow frowned in confusion.

“But I thought your grandparents were all dead.”

“Not all of them Willow,” Xander said laughingly. Or, not _exactly_. “The Harrises died when I was little, but mom’s parents are still alive. The only problem is that they live in Greece, so they don’t visit often. They finally got up the money to visit, and so I got a couple presents.”

“Huh.” Willow considered this. “It’s really nice. Like, expensive. It looks comfy. Do you know where I could get one?”

Her question made Xander cringe. “Uh, I don’t think you can. You’d have to ship it from Greece, for one.” Or the Underworld. Xander had the sneaking suspicion that if Willow knew what this jacket was made of she wouldn’t want her own. Most people didn’t like the idea of wearing the souls of the damned. It had even squicked him out the first few days, but now he’d gotten used to it. Whoever they were, if they’d been turned into a godly piece of clothing they were probably serial killers or vampire-level monsters or worse, anyway, so they deserved it.

“O- _kay_ ,” Willow pouted. Then she squealed as Xander tapped her on the nose with his ice cream.

“No pouting!” he commanded. “S’not my fault Granddad’s got good taste.” But then he was distracted again, before Willow could reply. His death senses were going wild even with the Mantle of Souls on his back, and he looked around suspiciously. The teen fished his black pen out of a jean pocket.

Xander suddenly noticed a vampire standing on the other side of the wall Willow had perched herself on. Well, now he knew what they felt like. If terminal illnesses felt like pain and grief, vampires felt like pain and hatred and fear. Yuck. Willow saw her friend’s sudden distraction and turned around to see what he was looking at. She screamed and jumped off of the wall even as Xander pulled her behind him and away from the vampire. Willow gasped behind him as the pen in his hand suddenly became a black sword.

“Willow, go!” Xander commanded her, not pausing to see if she’d listened.

Instead he jumped forwards, swinging his sword inexpertly but with a smoothness that spoke of long hours of practice. The vampire was forced to scramble backwards as Xander suddenly began swiping at it left and right. Suddenly, a tiny blonde girl jumped into the fight and Xander was forced to stumble backwards to keep from slicing her to ribbons. The girl punched the vampire in the face, kneed him in the crotch and flipped him over onto his back before turning to Willow and Xander.

“Hi, guys!” Buffy said.

The vampire staggered to its feet behind her and Xander lunged forward. He impaled the bloodsucker on his black blade and it exploded into dust. Willow and Buffy gawked.

“What the hell was that?” Buffy demanded. Xander frowned, not quite liking her tone.

“Yeah, that was so cool!” Willow cheered, apparently not noticing anything odd. Xander grinned at his redheaded friend.

“I told you my grandfather gave me some presents. After that whole thing with the Master I told mom all about the Hellmouth. She told Granddad and he brought me presents. The jacket is blessed by Hades, and this sword can kill anything.” He clicked it back into a pen. “Plus nifty disguise!”

Willow ooh-ed and clapped delightedly, but Buffy was scowling.

“Still, you could have been killed!” she said angrily.

Xander raised an eyebrow at her. “The second I got this I went to Giles for lessons so I wouldn’t accidently stab myself. I may not be good enough to take on some heavy-duty demons — I'm not as strong as you, obviously — but newly risen fledges are a piece of cake after three weeks of patrolling.”

Buffy huffed, but Xander just changed the subject before she could keep on her tear. “But hey, we missed you! I was a bit sad I didn’t hear from you at all. When did you get back?”

“Uh, just now,” Buffy said, looking rather blindsided by the topic change. “Dad drove me down. And I figured you two losers would be getting into some kind of trouble,” she added in a snide tone. Xander looked at her with another small frown.

“Well, I was doing pretty well taking care of the trouble myself,” Xander said pointedly. Buffy opened her mouth to say something — argue or complain, Xander wasn’t sure — but he decided to relent a bit. “It’s been a slow summer anyway. Besides one or two older ones out hunting, that’s the first vampire we’ve seen since you killed the Master.

Buffy gave them a smile that looked more like a grimace. “It’s like they knew I was coming back,” she said, the displeasure clear in her voice.

“So, how was your summer?” Willow asked as they began to walk away from the cemetery. “Did you slay anything?” she asked eagerly. Buffy shrugged.

“No,” she said simply. Then she elaborated. “Uh, just hung out, partied some, shopping was also a major theme.” That last bit put a smile back on her face, and she and Willow exchanged what Xander mentally labeled “shopping smiles”. They were evil things.

“Well, you haven’t lost your touch,” Xander allowed. “Sorry if I stole your stress relief, but Giles has been teaching me the ‘kill now sort out later’ tactic.”

Buffy laughed. “I think I remember that one.” She considered Xander for a moment. There was something odd in her expression still. “You’ve really been patrolling and learning to fight?”

Xander nodded. “Yeah, well, I do live here, and there won’t always be a lovely Slayer to save me.” He bowed to her. As the teen straightened he suddenly got up in Buffy’s face. “Hey, nice hair!” Xander told her, just noticing her haircut. Buffy just giggled.

“So, how did you guys fare?” she wanted to know. “Did you have any fun without me?”

“No,” Xander told the blonde, even as Willow exclaimed a happy “yes”. The two looked at each other.

“Besides my fighting lessons and a visit from some relatives, our summer was kind of yawn-worthy. The biggest excitement was burying the Master.” Well, _his_ biggest excitement had been gaining Death’s fealty, but again, couldn’t tell them that. Xander hoped Giles’ “easing them around” didn’t take long. This majorly sucked.

Willow nodded. “That’s right, you missed it,” she said, pointing over into yet another cemetery. “Right out by that tree. Giles buried the bones and we poured holy water and we got to wear robes,” she babbled. Willow had loved the robes.

Xander grinned at the two girls. “Very intense,” he said. “You should’ve been.” The grin slid off his face as he noticed Buffy shudder minutely.

“Hey, have you seen Giles?” Willow asked suddenly.

Buffy flipped her hair. “Why would I do that?” she asked flippantly. “I’ll see him at school.” Xander and Willow both frowned at that, once again exchanging uncertain looks. It fell to Xander to keep conversation flowing.

“Man,” he said, slinging an arm around Buffy’s small shoulders, “I’m really glad you’re back.”

Despite this Buffy was still distracted, gazing with worried eyes over Xander’s shoulder at the Master’s grave. “Me, too,” she said absently, but her heart wasn’t in it.

Xander remembered the comment his grandfather’s letter had made about how her mentality might have been changed from being brought back from the dead. The teen ruthlessly crushed the iota of guilt that appeared. He’d talk to Giles, and they would help her. It wasn’t as if Xander meant to mess her up, and now that he knew the consequences he wouldn’t be dragging people back from Charon’s boat so hastily. Buffy would get better.

The teen’s worry only increased when he saw the thoroughly distracted air Buffy had as she was dropped off at her home and said goodbye to her dad. He and Giles would fix this, Xander told himself firmly.

At least, he hoped they could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 3. I'm actually posting a bit earlier than planned; I was ill last weekend so did nothing but watch movies and edit my writing. As such, the editing might not be as polished as usual, which I apologise for.
> 
> Anyway, chapter 4 will be posted around April Fool's Day. Ish. No, I will not be doing an April Fool's---I haven't the time to think out something funny and/or elaborate, for one. You'll just get a chapter. ;P
> 
> Hope you enjoy, and give me feedback if you liked it! (Or even if you didn't.)


	4. Part 1, Legacy: When She Was Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy continues to act erratically, and the other Scoobies try and keep up even as the Master's minions make a last-ditch effort to revive him.

The first few days at school only increased Xander’s suspicions that something was very wrong with Buffy. She was snappy and short-tempered, and she had stormed out in a huff when Xander came for his usual sword practice with Giles. She was also beating Cordelia out for Queen Mean on the schoolyard. When _Cordy_ commented on your bitchiness, you were probably going a bit too far.

Even Angel thought there was something off about her. Of course, daddy dearest had mostly been pouting over Buffy giving him the cold shoulder when he dropped by the Harris house to check on Xander as had become his habit. Xander found it hard to be sympathetic, and so his parental vampiric stalker had gone off to brood somewhere else.

The night Xander and Willow went to the Bronze he found himself discussing Buffy with Willow as well.

“I just think something’s up is all,” Willow said, stirring her spoon through her ice cream.

Xander sighed. “I agree. I’m just not sure what’s off.”

“Buffy’s never acted like this before!” Willow expounded, waving her arms around. “Ever since she got back she’s... different.”

That comment made Xander laugh. “Buffy’s always been different.”

Willow’s reply was solemn. “She’s never been mean.”

Xander sighed again. “No, you’re right. Any sign of her? She said she was coming.” Of course, with the way she was acting Xander wasn’t very inclined to trust much of what Buffy said right now.

The redhead shook her head at him. “No. The band’s cool, though.”

He nodded distractedly at her. “Yeah, cool.” Xander looked around for Buffy.

For a bit he started to think Buffy hadn’t come for whatever reason, but then he saw her standing and talking to Angel. Broodmeister looked as upset as his lack of facial expression allowed him to. Trouble in paradise? Xander snorted to himself. He wished.

Buffy left Angel standing rather bereft and waltzed over to Willow and Xander’s table. She smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes.

“Hey!” she said, grinning at them in a very plastic fashion. Xander and Willow both said their hello’s as well, and Willow asked what Xander had been wondering as well.

“What’s wrong with Angel?”

Buffy shrugged nonchalantly. “Beats me,” she said with a supreme lack of concern. Willow frowned a bit at Buffy’s attitude, but Xander wasn’t as bothered. Of course, he knew he could get answers out of Angel later if needed, so there was that. Then, Buffy turned to Xander with an odd look in her eye.

“Let’s dance!” she told him, pulling on his shirt. Xander blinked.

“Oo-kay.”

Something was off. Buffy pulled Xander to the dance floor, still smiling that unfamiliar smile at him. They started to dance, and Xander finally registered what was going on. She was…trying to seduce him? A part of Xander insisted that it was about time she noticed him, but a larger part of Xander’s brain reminded him that he still didn’t know exactly how she’d been changed by her deathly experience, and taking advantage of his crush’s mental state would be a dick move.

Buffy turned around and spooned in against Xander, pulling his arms around her waist. She was dancing so close to him, and it was destroying Xander’s resolve to stop this until he knew it was genuine. A glance off the dance floor showed a stunned and strangely hurt looking Willow, and a scowling Angel. Then Buffy leaned against Xander, turning her head just so. Xander was distracted by how close she was, close enough to kiss. She smiled at him, but something was wrong. Her eyes were still cold.

“Xander?” Buffy whispered. “Did I ever thank you... for saving my life?”

Was that what this was about? Xander wondered in a daze. “No.”

Buffy slowly spun in his arms until she was facing him, and it was very hard to think again.

“Don’t you wish I would?” she breathed.

But Xander saw her eyes cut off the dance floor, towards where a certain vampire was standing, and he felt rage fill him. Cold, dead rage that was dangerous and implacable. Perhaps under other circumstances Xander would have just been crushed and confused, but he had started his transformation into the Dread King only a month prior, and that had _changed_ him. He stepped back from Buffy, glaring furiously. He could feel his Mantle (once again tied around his waist) trying to slither up his body into a protective covering.

Buffy blinked innocently, still smiling that seductive smile. “Xander?”

He snarled and walked away before he did something stupid, brushing past Angel as he left the Bronze. Xander glared at him as well. “You can _have_ her,” he hissed. He was humiliatingly aware that not only could Angel have most likely heard ever word Buffy said before, but the vampire could likely hear the hurt and confusion under the fury in Xander’s voice.

Of all the people Xander thought might use and abuse him, Buffy had never been one of them. Oh, he expected fireworks when Buffy found out about his less than human heritage, but that was totally different. What next? Would Willow decide he wasn’t worth hanging around anymore?

The irate demigod concentrated on his still new death senses as soon as he was out of the Bronze and followed the feeling of pain and hatred to a small quartet of vampires hiding a few buildings down from the Bronze in a way that just screamed “planned ambush”. Thankfully they were too intent on their planning to notice Xander standing behind them. He clicked his pen, and leapt into the fight.

Xander only surfaced when all the ones present were dead. Two had run away while he was distracted fighting, but Xander wasn’t sure where they had gone so he was hesitant to follow them. He frowned as he thought. What had they been planning? He looked around the dusty building and followed the tracks down into the basement. There was another pair of vamps down here standing near a person lying prone on the ground, and Xander smiled grimly as he once again raised his sword.

As soon as these vampires were dead, the teen knelt down to check on the woman still lying unconscious on the ground. He sucked in a sharp breath when he saw Miss Calendar’s face. Xander didn’t have to check for a pulse to know that the teacher was still alive, but he did it anyway to reassure himself. He heard shuffling sounds and muffled screams coming from upstairs and jerked back, hand going to his sword.

The sounds reached the stairs just as Xander did, and he slowly backed away and out of sight. Two vamps soon came down the stairs, dragging a very familiar girl with them. Cordelia noticed Xander and her eyes widened, but he put a finger to his lips and she visibly calmed. The vampires released her and turned to leave. That was when Xander struck. He speared one in the back with his sword, drawing the attention of the second. It charged him, and Xander let it, reaching his free hand out to grab at a cold wrist and holding on until his aura leeched all life from the vampire and it turned to dust. The teen turned to his classmate.

“You alright, Cordelia?”

When she nodded tremulously he jerked his head at the still unconscious teacher. “We’d better get out of here. I’m not sure why they grabbed you, but I doubt we’ll like the answer. We’ll wake Miss Calendar once we’re inside the Bronze.” Xander tried to lift Miss Calendar over his shoulders, but he wasn’t quite strong enough to carry her.

Astonishingly enough, Cordelia stepped forwards. “Here,” she said brusquely, grasping Miss Calendar by the ankles. “You take her shoulders,” she ordered him, and Xander nodded agreeably.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. Cordelia shot him an annoyed look, but they still began up the stairs with the unconscious teacher. It was slow going, and the two teens were clumsy and out of sync with their burden. Xander almost collapsed with relief when they reached the main floor only to see Angel about to charge down the stairs.

The vampire skittered backwards upon seeing Xander and Cordelia with the unconscious computer teacher.

“Miss Calendar?” he said in surprise. Xander nodded.

“They grabbed her and Cordelia for some reason. I killed them all, but we’d best clear out anyway. Can you carry her? I’m not quite strong enough.”

Angel lifted a curious eyebrow. “Dhampir usually have vampire-level strength,” he commented neutrally. It was the first time Angel had verbally acknowledged his relation to Xander. Before this it had all been silent stalking. Seriously, the guy had some major communication issues! Xander just shrugged at the implied question.

“And most demigods related to Hades have very little physical strength because their very presence saps life. It’s symbolic, according to Mom. Seriously, I could never give a girl real flowers on a date because me having the flowers would wither them in an instant. Now can we get out of here? I really don’t want to learn these guys I dusted had another crew of friends just waiting to pop up.”

The vampire hummed thoughtfully, but said nothing. He instead pulled Miss Calendar into a perfect fireman’s hold (jerk) before leading the odd pair out of the building. “Where are we going?” Angel asked. “The Bronze?”

Cordelia started and spoke for the first time since Angel had appeared. “No!” she exclaimed. “I can’t go in there with the two of you and an unconscious teacher!”

Xander snickered, amused in spite of himself.

“Good to see we’ve got our priorities straight,” he muttered. Cordelia opened her mouth to retort, her hands going to her hips.

“I have an apartment nearby,” Angel said out of the blue. “You should be safe there.”

Xander blinked and said the first thing that came to mind. “Does the invitation rule apply to a vampire’s home?”

Angel gave him a look, but Cordelia interrupted.

“Wait, vampire?” she asked, head swinging between Angel and Xander. Angel might have rolled his eyes a little.

Xander couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah, Cordy, he’s a vampire. And also my dad, but we only found that out this summer when he ran into my mom. Apparently they were _friends_ —” he grimaced “—in the seventies.”

Cordelia looked back and forth between the two males even as she jogged to keep up with them, disbelief clear on her face. They came to a small apartment, Angel fumbling with a key even as he balanced the still comatose Miss Calendar on his shoulders. Xander was actually getting kind of worried about her. Shouldn’t she have woken up by now? But Cordelia clearly had other concerns.

“He can’t be old enough to be your dad!” she protested.

This time Angel actually snorted as he stepped into the apartment. Man, so His Broodiness _was_ really capable of genuine emotion. Wonders would never cease. “I’m over two hundred years old,” the vampire said evenly, laying the unconscious woman on a couch and gesturing for Xander to close the door. “I _think_ I might be old enough to be Xander’s dad.”

“And that totally isn’t creepy when you consider you and Buffy,” Xander muttered, but then his brain caught up with his mouth and he scowled. He’d momentarily forgotten the drama with Buffy in the Bronze, and remembering brought back all the anger and hurt. He looked up to see Angel watching him.

“She had no right to treat you the way she did,” Angel said softly. “Especially not because of me.”

Xander blinked, feeling stunned and just a bit gratified. That…he had not expected that. He definitely hadn’t expected it to come from Angel, either.

“Wait.”

Cordelia had her hands on her hips again. “You’re telling me Buffy tried to use you-” she pointed at Xander “-to get you jealous?” This time she pointed to Angel. When they both nodded slowly, Cordelia continued. “And you two are…related!?” Cordelia scoffed. “She’s more messed up than I thought.”

“Well, Buffy doesn’t actually know,” Xander said hesitantly. “I only found out this summer, and I haven’t had a chance to tell the others yet.” He could hardly believe he was defending her, but honestly…she didn’t know. So she couldn’t be faulted for that, at least, even if Xander felt she had plenty of fault already.

Cordelia clearly thought the same, because she scoffed again. “Still. Really, when _I_ think somebody’s gone too far they clearly need to stop.”

That comment made Xander snicker again. “Funny, I thought the same thing earlier. At least you admit it,” he said in amusement. Cordelia just huffed.

Xander leaned over the teacher and looked up at Angel. “Do you think something’s wrong? She’s not gonna die anytime soon, but shouldn’t she have woken up by now?”

“It depends on how hard they hit her,” Angel started to say, but then Cordelia jumped into the conversation again.

“Wait, how do you know she’s not going to just die like that? Shouldn’t we take her to a hospital if she’s seriously injured?”

Xander sighed. He really didn’t want to tell Cordelia too much before he’d told Buffy and Willow, but he supposed a bit more wouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t like she made a habit of comparing notes with his girls anyway.

“Weren’t you following the conversation earlier?” he asked. “You know, the stuff about dhampir and demigods?”

Cordelia blinked. “What’s a dam-perey?” Xander rolled his eyes.

“A _dhampir_ is somebody who’s half vampire. Like me. Because of Angel.”

The teenage girl looked between Xander and Angel, clearly looking for something. “You know…I can kind of see it. You _do_ look kinda similar. You’ve got the same eyes, and your faces are similar, I guess.” She gave Xander a critical once-over. “If you dressed better you might actually clean up nice. Will wonders never cease.”

Angel and Xander exchanged uncertain glances. Xander, at least, hadn’t yet tried to find a resemblance between himself and his newly discovered parent. Of course, now that Cordy had said that it was kind of obvious. Xander knew his grandfather had black hair, but godly genetics were just weird. Xander’s appearance should only come from his immediate progenitors (meaning his mom and dad). And his mom was red-haired and black-eyed while Angel had dark brown hair and brown eyes — just like Xander. Of course, his mom had a habit of sighing sadly while drunk that he also greatly resembled his missing uncle Zagreus, but that was probably just her projecting.

“Well,” Xander said after a few moments of silence, “the reason I’m nothing like a half-vampire kid should be is because my mom is kind of a death god princess.”

Cordelia’s eyes _gleamed_. “Princess?” she asked avidly.

Xander shrugged. “Yeah, so I’ve got cool demigod powers ‘cause my granddad is king of the dead.”

Her brow furrowed. “That’s why you would kill flowers if you tried to give them to a girl you like?”

“That’s what you remember from the conversation earlier?” Xander asked, dumbfounded. He shook his head. “ _Honestly_.” The teen slumped down onto a couch and looked up at the vampire hovering nervously at the back of the room.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any human blood you could share?” he asked, pulling his Mantle on and digging in the pockets.

“Blood!?” Cordelia shrieked. Angel frowned as well, but answered anyway.

“No…I drink pig’s blood.”

Xander huffed and let his head flop back over the end of the sofa. “Never mind,” he grumbled.

“Why would you want _blood_ , you wacko!?” Cordelia demanded.

The boy rolled his eyes again just as he fished the plastic container out of his magically enlarged pockets. He held it up so the girl and vampire could see the little red fruits inside.

“I was going to make a temporary sacrifice so I could share some of my snack with you, but apparently I can’t.”

“Sacrifice?” Angel asked lowly. Xander nodded nonchalantly.

“Yeah. They’re pomegranate seeds.” That was apparently all the answer Angel needed, as the vamp instantly relaxed. Xander frowned at the man still standing tensely at the back of the room.

“Y’know, if you want to go patrol now you can. We won’t mess with anything in your home, and if we stay the night I’ll make sure we call parents and stuff. You could go check out why a group of vampires wanted to kidnap Cordy and Miss Calendar.”

Angel rolled his eyes a bit at the flippant way Xander dismissed him. “I thought I was supposed to be the parent?” he muttered. Xander flashed him a winning grin.

“Face it, daddy-o, I’m both handsomer and more mature than you.”

That surprisingly got a laugh out of the usually stoic man. “Well you certainly inherited my sarcasm.”

Xander blinked. “You know how to sass?” He squinted. “Nah, I don’t see it.” The teen waved his hand. “Now go, peasant. His majesty dismisses you.”

Angel smirked but said nothing, instead slipping out the window and disappearing into the night.

“You two are _totally_ related.”

Xander turned to Cordelia, who had been surprisingly silent during that unexpected bit of banter. He rolled his eyes. “Yes, Cordy, we already covered that. There was much freak-age and Mom was being all flirty and weird.” He popped a hand of pomegranate seeds into his mouth and Cordelia suddenly zeroed in on them.

“Why would you have to have some sort of blood sacrifice for me to eat your pomegranate seeds? Are they demon seeds, or something?”

He snickered. “Nah, not demon seeds. They’re a gift from my grandmother — they’re her symbol, you know. Cause the Underworld has these enchanted gardens, and when Grandfather was trying to convince Persephone to marry him he planted them for her because she liked gardens, only you can’t really…grow things…in the land of the dead, so every piece of food grown there is naturally enchanted so that if you ate any you would have to live in the land of the dead forever.”

Cordelia blinked in surprise at Xander’s sudden babble fest, but he simply kept on talking.

“I can eat them because I’m more god than human to begin with, and I have to live in the Underworld when I’m an adult anyway ‘cause I’m gonna take over being king of the dead from my grandfather. But ordinary humans would need some sort of offering to Hades to negate the spell on the pomegranate seeds, so blood ritual.”

The girl perched gingerly on the edge of the aged couch. “You’re going to be king of the dead when you’re grown up?” She sounded absolutely fascinated, in a horrified sort of way. Xander just nodded, and Cordelia thought for a moment.

“Won’t that be creepy?”

Xander laughed aloud. “Sometimes, Cordelia, I think I might like you,” he said, but when she glared at him he hastened to answer her question.

“Yes, it is a bit creepy, but I’ve grown up knowing. And it’s not like I’ve never done anything creepy myself. My mom’s idea of family vacation usually involves a trip to a famous battlefield or war memorial or cemetery. And my cousin Thanatos is literally the grim reaper. He’s got the scythe and everything, but he doesn’t have to look like a skeleton unless he wants to.” Xander smirked. “He’s actually really hot when he decides to look human.”

Cordelia looked skeptical, and Xander grinned. “Don’t believe me?” he asked. He fished down in his pocket again, drawing out a picture his mom had taken only a week or so ago. In it Xander was wearing the Mantle of Souls and was standing arm in arm with a scythe-wielding Death in his new garb. Cordelia looked at the picture in fascination, fingers brushing over Thanatos’ face.

“Okay,” she said with a bit of resignation. “He’s really hot.”

“He’s also a primordial entity almost as old as time itself and he has been married with children in numerous universes. Not in this one, I don’t think, but he’s been married, like, very few times, and his kids rarely live to adulthood because everything in the universe wants to kill them.”

“That’s harsh,” Cordelia commented. Xander shrugged.

“Generally speaking everything wants to kill demigods of any kind. They just hate the kids of death gods more than usual because we’re abominations.” Cordelia reared back at the bitterness in Xander’s voice. “Dead things shouldn’t have children, after all. And people wonder why my mom’s mortal siblings tend to go nuts.”

There was silence for several long minutes.

“Well, I don’t think you’re an abomination.”

Xander’s head swiveled to look at Cordelia so fast he gave himself whiplash. She wasn’t looking at him, instead staring at her shoes and clutching her hands in her lap.

“I mean, you’re a total dork and a loser,” she added hastily, “so it’s not like I’m suddenly gonna be all buddy-buddy just ‘cause you’ve got some sob story.”

Xander gasped a little, leaning forward as he suddenly began to laugh. He couldn’t seem to stop himself. Cordelia actually looked concerned, but he waved her aside.

“Just-just never lose your snark, Cordelia,” he said. “I think the world would be a sadder world for it.” Cordelia huffed and opened her mouth, clearly of the opinion that Xander was mocking her. (He wasn’t. That had been the most awkward validation of his life, but _wow_ Cordelia was actually a decent human being under the layers of Queen Bitch.) But before she could say anything, the teacher laying on the other couch surged upwards, coughing and gasping in a sudden panic.

“Miss Calendar!” both teens exclaimed, jumping in startled alarm.

They’d actually forgotten she was there.

*          *          *

The next morning the first thing Xander did was report on the strange attempted kidnapping to Giles. Miss Calendar didn’t have much more to recount than Cordelia — she had less, actually, because her attackers got her from behind and knocked her out long before they dragged her to that basement. Willow, however, had other concerns.

“She’s possessed!” Willow insisted.

Giles rolled his eyes a bit as he tried to get a drink out of the vending machine. “Possessed?” he repeated incredulously.

Willow nodded solemnly. “That’s the only explanation that makes any sense. I mean, you should’ve seen her last night. That wasn’t Buffy,” she insisted adamantly.

“She could just have had a mental breakdown this summer,” Xander pointed out. “We don’t know exactly how being dead might have affected her mental state.” Both Giles and Willow turned to look at him, surprised.

“What?” Xander said. Then he made a face. “Okay, that might have been a quote from the letter my grandfather wrote me when I told him about what happened at the end of the school year.”

“You _told_ him?” Willow gasped.

Xander’s eyebrows went up a bit. “Well…yeah.” He threw a pleading look at Giles.

The man sighed and interjected, “Xander’s mother’s family seems to be very well versed in magic.”

Willow blinked in surprise. “Oh, yeah, your magic pen-sword thing. And they’re from Greece?” Her head tilted to the side. “How come I’ve never heard about them before when you go on rants about your family?”

Xander barked out a laugh. “Because I actually happen to _like_ those relatives.”

Giles took a sip of his soda and winced at its sweetness before cutting in again. “Getting back to the point, I believe Xander’s grandfather’s theory is rather more likely than possession. She may simply have what you Americans refer to as “issues”. Uh, her experience with the Master must have been extremely traumatic. Well, she was, for at least a few minutes, technically dead. I-I don’t think she’s dealt with that on a conscious level. She’s convinced herself that she’s invulnerable... for the very reason that she feels...well…vulnerable.”

Willow scowled. “And that gives her an excuse to act like a b-i-t-c-h?

Giles sighed and sat down with them. “Willow, I think we’re all a little too old to be spelling things out.”

Xander frowned, tilting his head to the side. He was fairly sure he’d misheard Willow’s spelling, because what he heard didn’t make any sense. “A bitca?”

Giles rolled his eyes. “Yes, well. As I said, the reason for Buffy’s behavior may be a totally mundane occurrence, which means I don’t magically have a solution.”

The bell rang and the students around them began to leave for class, but Giles kept on talking.

“We simply have to be there for her. Try to get her to talk to you, if you can. Especially you, Xander,” he nodded to the boy. “You were the one to bring her back to life—”

Xander cleared his throat, tilting his head towards the door. Giles spun around in his seat to see Buffy approaching. Thankfully, she didn’t seem to have heard them.

“Good morning,” Giles said. “Did you sleep well?”

Buffy scowled. “Like a rock,” she told him sarcastically. Then-

“Master’s gone.”

Giles blinked even as the other two teens at the table stiffened in alarm. “I’m sorry?” the librarian asked. And it all went downhill from there. Apparently the Master was gone, probably because his surviving minions wanted to try their hands at a revivification ritual, and still Buffy was being a jerk.

The “civilians” comment Buffy made had Xander wanting to smack her, but it wouldn’t do any good — pit child of Hades against Vampire Slayer in a feat of physical strength, and the Slayer won every time. But Xander very nearly didn’t care. He had had about enough of Buffy’s bad temper and attitude. Thankfully, for once Snyder intervened at a good time, and sent the teens on their way before Xander could give in to the temptation to break his hand a la Buffy retaliation.

Once classes had ended the group convened as usual in the library, discussing the problem at hand. The “Master possibly being brought back to life” problem, that was, not the “Buffy has become a jerk” problem. Giles seemed to think the only fix for _that_ would be time. Xander was honestly hoping for a faster solution to present itself, because the Evil Buffy act was getting old quick and Xander didn’t want to lose a good friend because she had issues he’d helped to cause.

Surprisingly, Cordelia showed up when the Scoobies had finally started to pull out the big dust-covered books. She wanted Xander to walk her home because she was afraid of being kidnapped again, and it was then that Willow and Buffy learned about the attempted snatching the night before. Xander bluntly told the girl he planned to help research, so she could either walk home on her own or wait until he was done. And that was how Queen C got drafted into flipping through old tomes, complaining all the while.

As usual, it was Giles who finally found something. “Alright, alright,” he exclaimed, drawing the teenagers’ attention to him. “I-I-I’ve got something. It’s Latin, so bear with me. Uh, to revive the vampire they need his bones, uh... w-which they have, and, um, the blood... this is very unclear, of the closest person... uh, someone connected to the vampire.”

Well. Xander thought faintly. That was _no help at all_.

Buffy seemed to have a different opinion. “That’d be me,” she said bluntly.

“Perhaps,” the librarian said, pushing his glasses up as he mouthed some of the Latin words and flipped through yet another dictionary.

The girl rolled her eyes and put a hand on her hip. “We were close,” she said flatly and just a bit sarcastically. “We killed each other. It really promotes togetherness.”

Cordelia scoffed. “Oh, get over yourself! It might be anything, even an old girlfriend or a kid or something, with what he said. Newsflash, not everything creepy and monster-y is about you.” Her eyes flickered to Xander.

Buffy scowled and started to retort, and Xander cut in, trying desperately to avoid the impending cat fight. “Well, is there anything on when the ceremony might take—?”

A rock came crashing through a window and Xander jerked to the side.

“Whoa!”

Buffy caught the rock in her hands. It had a note wrapped around it and kept in place with a necklace. She held the necklace up. “Hey, that’s Miss Calendar’s,” Willow said suddenly.

“Oh, hell!” Xander turned to Cordelia. “I apologize for being rude to you earlier. It was totally justified for you to want protection on the way home.” Why hadn’t _he_ thought they might try again?

Buffy read the note out. “Come to the Bronze before it opens, or we make her a meal.” She looked up. Giles had removed his glasses and turned pale.

Cordelia shuddered. “God, I’m glad I came here,” she said.

“What do we do?” Willow exclaimed.

Buffy exhaled. “I go to the Bronze and save the day,” she said simply.

Xander shook his head. “I don’t like this.”

“Nor I!” Giles agreed.

The blonde Slayer turned back to them as she stood. “Yeah? Well, you guys aren’t going.”

Xander and Giles both gave Buffy a look, but Cordelia nodded fervently. “What do you mean?” Willow asked. All of them were staring just a bit.

“I can’t do it anymore,” Buffy exclaimed, waving her hands around. “I can’t look after the three of you guys while I’m fighting.”

Willow stared at her helplessly as Xander and Giles glared. “Well, what about the rest of the note?” the redhead wanted to know.

Buffy’s eyebrows went up, and she looked at Willow in bemusement. “What rest of the note?”

“The part that says ‘P.S. This is a trap’!”

Giles nodded. “You’ll be playing straight into their hands.” He took off his glasses.

Buffy tossed her head. “I can handle this,” she insisted.

Willow almost jumped on Buffy. Xander would have let her. “Stop _saying_ that!” the girl shouted. “God, what’s wrong with you?” Willow asked with horror in her voice.

“Miss Calendar may be dead,” Xander interjected evenly. It was totally likely. For all they knew this revivification ritual had been used already and the Master wanted a second shot at killing Buffy. Or it had failed, and the minions wanted another shot at killing Buffy. Either way, everything about this screamed “trap”.

Buffy’s jaw tightened. “This is _my_ fight.”

She turned on her heel and grabbed her coat and bag on the way out. Willow just watched her go, but Xander shook his head. Giles put his glasses back on.

“Angel should follow her once she’s out of the school,” Xander murmured. Willow gave him an odd look.

“Since when are you okay with Angel? Or know what he would do?” she asked.

Xander grimaced. “A lot happened this summer,” he said.

“Yeah, like finding out Mr. Hotness is your dad,” Cordelia smirked. Xander glared at her, and Willow gaped, her eyes swiveling between Cordelia and Xander.

“…you’re not objecting,” Willow said to Xander suddenly.

Xander grimaced again. “Yeah, well it’s true. He and mom dated before she moved to Sunnydale. She told Tony and the hospital I was early when I was born, but I was actually kinda late.”

Willow’s jaw was now scraping the floor. “And you told _Cordelia_ before you told me?” she demanded, looking upset. Xander winced.

“Well, Angel kind of helped me save Cordelia and Miss Calendar last night. It sort of came out then.”

Willow pouted.

“We need to get back to work,” Giles said pointedly. “I-if you could discuss this later? The best way to help Buffy right now is to find out everything we can.”

Willow continued to pout, but now her focus was redirected. “I still think we should’ve gone with her,” she said.

Xander rolled his eyes. “Buffy’s about to lose it. I think we should be trying to reach minimum safe distance,” he said snidely. Then he froze. “Giles, we’ve got hostiles nearby. Lots of violent death. Do you have any weapons you three can try to grab?”

Giles went over to the weapons cabinet and pulled out a sword. He also handed a pair of stakes to Willow and Cordelia. “Y-you’re certain, Xander?” he asked. Xander shrugged.

“It might just be a group passing by on the way to the Bronze, but…”

“Better safe than sorry,” the librarian agreed. He looked back at the book he had been referencing and his eyes widened. “Ah! Ah, ah, ah! Uh, uh, the Latin is, is translated from the Sumerian, a-a-and rather badly,” he said. Giles grimaced and looked at Xander. “Closest to the Master actually translates as ‘nearest’. Physically. The, the, the person or persons who were with him... when he...”

Xander pulled out his pen almost on autopilot. “It is a trap,” he said. The group whirled around to see several vampires approaching from the mezzanine level above the main library. Xander clicked his pen and held his sword in a ready position.

“It just isn’t for her,” Giles confirmed, and the battle began.

Xander fought furiously, dusting at least two vampires with his Stygian sword and wounding another, but there were too many vampires and neither Willow nor Cordelia had any idea how to defend themselves. That was definitely something to talk to Giles about later if they survived this. Giles fought pretty well, of course, but his ordinary steel sword didn’t do half as much as Xander’s magical one unless he cut a vampire’s head off. Sometime in the scuffle Xander was disarmed and nearly had his face smashed in with a vampiric fist. His head hit the wall and he blacked out.

Xander regained consciousness behind a broken table. He stood, using the table for support, and stared at the library. The whole room had been trashed. Also, everyone was gone and Buffy was standing there looking almost human for the first time since school had started back.

“Xander!” she cried out, rushing to him. Xander shook her away. “What happened?” she asked in a small voice.

“Vampires,” Xander panted. A beat of silence. “The ones you could _handle yourself_.”

Buffy didn’t rise to the sarcasm in his voice, instead addressing the real problem. “Where are the others?”

“I don’t know,” Xander told her. He could feel that cold dead rage again and suddenly the words just poured out. “I don’t know what your problem is,” he said, “what your issues are. But as of now, I officially don’t care. If you’d worked with us for five seconds, you could’ve stopped this.”

Buffy turned away. “We, we just have to think.” Only she didn’t sound like she was capable of much thinking. She was rather panicked. “Where would they have taken them?”

“If they hurt Willow, I’ll kill you.” The words burst out of Xander vehemently, and he suddenly knew they were true. Buffy might have been his friend, but Willow had been his sister for years. If Buffy made him lose the only other member of his little family (besides his mom) Xander wasn’t sure he _wouldn’t_ go crazy like many of the more human children of Hades did.

Buffy turned and looked at Xander seriously and a bit sadly. “Why did they take them and not you?” she asked. And for Buffy that was as good as an acknowledgement.

Xander thought. It had all happened so fast. “Giles said the ritual was, um... They needed people who were close to the Master. Physically close. When he, uh...” Xander gestured a bit helplessly.

Buffy knew what he meant. “The ones who were with the Master when he died.” Xander nodded.

“Giles, Willow, Cordelia...”

Buffy finished the list: “…and Ms. Calendar.”

Xander scowled. “They’ve got a complete set now,” he pointed out. “We need to do something.”

“We need to find out where,” Buffy said. Xander almost asked how, but then he had an idea.

“You know?” he said. “I may have a way for us to do that.”

Buffy turned to him, giving Xander her full attention. He fished the half-full container of pomegranate seeds out of his magical jacket. The teen godling gave the Slayer a wan smile.

“Old family recipe,” he said, but then paused with a seed between his fingers. “Do you happen to know where Angel is? This would be easier with him as a focus. I’m a step removed.”

Angel, as it turned out, was guarding a vampire prisoner he and Buffy had caught at the Bronze. Xander pulled out a small penknife and poked the pad of his own thumb so that a drop of blood welled up on it. He smeared the blood on the pomegranate seed, and chanted softly in Greek. Buffy gasped as the little red fruit grew in size and became a pearly white.

“Angel, I need your blood too,” Xander said during a break in his chanting. The vampire didn’t take the offered knife, instead going into game face and using his sharp teeth to prick one of his own fingers. At Xander’s direction Angel smeared it on the pomegranate seed and then Xander spoke another few lines in Greek.

“This should take us straight to the Master’s bones,” Xander told them. He leaned down to place the pearl on the floor. “You two will need to hold on to me. And we probably don’t need the prisoner anymore.”

By the time Xander stood the vampire woman was a pile of dust on the floor and Buffy was twirling a stake in her hands. “Hold on to me,” Xander repeated, resting his foot gently on the seed. He was careful not to put any weight down yet. Buffy and Angel did as he told them despite the confusion both were clearly displaying. Xander grinned at them, and then stomped hard on the pearl he had just created.

“Take us to the Master!” he commanded, and then the three of them vanished in a sparkle of golden dust.

The trio reappeared in another glimmer of golden dust in a dark corner of an old building. There was one black-skinned vampire in priestly garb giving what was frankly a creepy speech as four people hanging from the ceiling were pulled so that they were directly above the Master’s skeleton, which was perfectly laid out on a table at the center of the room.

Xander tapped the Slayer on the shoulder. “Buffy!” he whispered. “Buffy!” She turned to look at him. “We gotta do something now!” he told her. Buffy nodded.

“You two get the others out of here,” she said. Xander nodded back at her, and Angel cut in.

“We need you to distract the vampires.”

Buffy nodded again, staring up at the four prisoners. “Right.”

Xander eyed her. “What are you gonna do?” Buffy’s gaze was distant.

“I’m gonna kill them all.” She turned back to the vampires and said in a hard voice, “That ought to distract them.”

Xander nodded in acknowledgement, but Buffy didn’t notice as she stalked around the circle of vampires. The Slayer threw a stake through one of them from behind, and all the other vampires gaped in shock at the petite blonde girl standing in his ashes. The priestly one roared in outrage and the others converged on her, giving Buffy ample opportunity to beat out her aggression.

Angel and Xander seized the opportunity to climb the ladder to the platform above in order to get the others off of the conveyor. The two of them tugged on the chain, bringing the others swinging limply back over to the platform.

“The sacrifices!” the priest vampire shouted from below. “Stop them!”

They finally had everyone onto the platform, and Giles groaned, rolling over a bit in a semiconscious state. Buffy was still fighting below, and the few glimpses Xander saw were pretty impressive. She was flipping and jumping and destroying basically everything in sight. A vampire finally made it up on to the platform and Xander unclicked his pen.

“You take care of the guys, dad,” he said, turning to face the vampire that obeyed the priestly one’s orders. Angel reared back in surprise for an instant, but then turned to waking and freeing the others when Xander sent the vampire reeling with the flat of his blade. He dusted the creature with his sword just as Miss Calendar managed to sit up.

The teacher crawled over to Giles, who was now coherent but failing to sit up on his own.

“Are you alright?” Xander heard the man ask from his position on the ground.

“Yeah, I’m okay.”

After his enemy was dead Xander moved to the edge of the platform and pulled a still unconscious Willow into his arms. He watched Buffy’s fight below, noting Angel climbing down to help her out of the corner of his eye.

Giles finally managed to sit up. “Where’s Buffy?” he asked faintly.

Xander hesitated. “Uh, she’s working out her issues,” he told him.

Down below Angel threw the vampire on top of Buffy across the room, and he fell into a storage rack that came clattering down on top of him. The vampire priest appeared again in the doorway, this time with a large sledgehammer.

“ENOUGH!” the vampire roared. Buffy turned to look at creepy priest dude and Angel punched the other vampire as it tried to get up.

The vampire priest dude gave a totally disturbing announcement (it _rhymed_ , good god) about how he planned to kill Buffy with his lovely hammer, but Buffy just raised an eyebrow at him.

“So, _are_ you gonna kill me or are we just making small talk?” she asked.

The vampire lifted the sledgehammer in indignation and yelled as he ran forward. The other vampire burst into dust as Angel staked it, and Buffy grasped the tall wooden torch post in front of her, breaking it off and spinning it a few times in her hands. She stabbed the vampire priest with the burning end and he was suddenly set ablaze. He backed up and screamed as the flames spread over him. He made a last desperate attempt to get Buffy and raised the sledgehammer over his head, but the flames anticlimactically burned him to ash. The sledgehammer fell to the floor with a loud clang and Buffy dropped the still burning post onto the concrete.

Willow had awakened sometime during this last fight. “It’s over,” she said with relief.

Xander shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

Below them Buffy picked up the sledgehammer and began pounding on the Master’s bones, her face in a rictus of grief. Xander sighed. Maybe now she’d be back to normal. Angel came up behind Buffy and watched her pound on the Master until there was nothing left on the table. She stopped and burst into tears, dropping the sledgehammer to the floor.

Xander turned away as Angel comforted her. He was still upset about everything Buffy had done, but he did acknowledge that she needed this. After a while the achy and solemn group managed to make their way out of the building and orient themselves enough to figure out how to get home. But before Xander went towards his own house he jogged over to Buffy. She wasn’t crying anymore, but her eyes and nose were red and Angel still had an arm around her.

“Buffy…”

She turned to him, her eyes full of tears. “I messed up, didn’t I?” she said roughly. Xander nodded.

“Yeah, you did. I can forgive the “I am the invincible Slayer” stuff, so long as you promise never to do it again, but it’s going to take me a while to forgive you for what you did in the Bronze.” His eyes trailed up to Angel, who grimaced and nodded. Xander looked back at Buffy.

“You ever use me to make someone else jealous again, and you’re gonna be down a friend. As much as I would miss you, I’m not some doormat anymore. I’m not going to let you treat me that way.”

Buffy nodded, tears falling again. “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muffled by the hands that came up to cover her face. Xander sighed and drew her into a hug.

“It’s all over now, Buff,” he whispered. “Just- Next time come talk to me and my mom, okay? We’re pretty smart about the whole death and almost dying thing. We’re children of Hades, after all.”

Buffy sniffled. “Okay,” she said in a choked tone. Xander stepped back and nodded to the vampire still hovering behind Buffy.

“Night, Angel,” Xander murmured, before turning away and walking home alone. Behind him, he heard Buffy ask Angel in bewilderment, “Since when are you two friends?” Xander snickered a bit to himself, perfectly willing to let his vampiric parent explain that can of worms. It just made his job easier tomorrow, since Buffy was currently the only one who didn’t know Angel was Xander’s dad.

He gazed up at the starry night sky, and he felt his Mantle expand from a hoodie into a long trench coat-like jacket and as it billowed out behind him his death senses suddenly expanded to fill the whole radius of the area. He could sense the dead vampires he and Buffy had killed, and he could feel Thanatos’ presence with them so strongly he could almost see the entity. Xander grinned down at the Mantle of Souls.

“Well this is new,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed! This chapter and the next one are just character-building and further establishment of Xander's powers. The plot will really begin to pick up and change starting in chapters six and seven.
> 
> Anyway, Chapter 5, Week of the Undead, will come at the end of April. See you then!


	5. Part 1, Legacy: Week of the Undead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander grows more comfortable with his new powers, and ends up making a new friend after a week of fighting the Franken-teens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to post this chapter early because I'm going to be on vacation in Korea during my usual posting date for this story. Have fun!

Buffy was apparently majorly weirded out by the concept of Xander being Angel’s kid. For the next few weeks she would give Xander odd looks whenever she thought he wasn’t paying attention. It was almost like she was sizing him up. And Buffy wasn’t the only one acting weird. Cordelia kept…showing up…anytime Xander was on his own. She would make mostly superficial small talk, and she would ask him curious questions about gods and vampires. Right now, Willow was the only normal person in his life who wasn’t a grown up.

And the grownups were starting to act strange too. Angel was still stopping by for his bi-weekly stalking of his second favorite teenager (because clearly Buffy was his favorite), and Xander’s mom had taken to acquiring human blood from her friend who worked in the hospital and pressing it on Angel at every opportunity. The guy couldn’t exactly object in the face of his mom’s determination. Xander was almost worried she was going to start collaborating with Buffy. Now _that_ would be scary.

And then Giles decided to jump onto the weird adult bandwagon, and Buffy and Xander walked in on him practicing a date invitation on a chair. It was physically painful to watch. And clearly Giles knew he was failing at the pickup lines thing too, as immediately after his very poor attempt at a date invite he began insulting himself.

“Idiot,” he hissed.

Buffy smirked at Xander and then spoke up. “Boy...” she started. Giles jumped out of his seat and spun around. It was actually kind of funny. “I guess we never realized how much you like that chair,” the blonde girl said, still smirking. Xander couldn’t help but grin as well when Giles stuttered his answer.

“I-I-I was just working on...” He began to step away from the chairs and knocked over a stack of books on his desk.

“Your pickup lines?” Buffy inserted helpfully.

Giles bent over to pick up his books. “Um, in a manner of speaking, yes.”

Xander snickered and Buffy grinned. “Then if you wouldn’t mind a little Gene and Roger, you might wanna leave off the ‘idiot’ part. Being called an idiot tends to take people out of the dating mood,” the teenage girl said with an air of authority.

Xander turned to Buffy with a smirk of his own. “Hmm, it actually kind of turns me on.” If only Cordelia were present to hear him say that. He’d gotten into the habit of making a game out of freaking her out since she wouldn’t leave him alone. He was currently Xander: 2, Cordelia: 4, but he was making a comeback. The boy grinned at Buffy and she gave him a bemused look.

“I fear you,” she said with perfect seriousness before waltzing over to her Watcher. “You also might wanna avoid words like ‘amenable’ and ‘indecorous’, y’know. Speak English, not whatever they speak in, um...”

Giles just looked exasperated at the slights to his home country now instead of offended like he would have been when they were all still new to each other. “England?” the man suggested wearily.

Buffy waved her hand. “Yeah. That.” She hopped up onto the table. “You just say, ‘Hey, I got a thing, you maybe have a thing, maybe we could have a thing.’“

Giles didn’t seem to appreciate that advice. “Oh, thank you, Cyrano.” Buffy and Xander exchanged looks, not too sure who Cyrano was, but shrugged it off.

“I’m not finished,” Buffy continued. “Then you say, ‘How do you feel about Mexican?’“

“About Mexicans?” the librarian frowned in confusion. Xander despaired over this man, he really did.

“Mexican,” Xander jumped in. “You know. The _food_.” Buffy nodded in agreement.

“You take her for food, for which you then pay.” She smiled sunnily at Giles for an instant before making another comment. The two teased the man a bit more, but unfortunately it couldn’t last. Giles almost left the room after they figured out the mysterious “chair woman” was Miss Calendar, but he decided instead to switch the subject to more serious business.

“So, um, how did things go last night?” Giles asked. “Did Mr. Korshak show up on schedule?”

Buffy shrugged, a bit bummed to be moving away from her new pastime of teasing the Watcher over his lack of social skills. “More or less,” she said. “Angel and I took care of him.”

“I heard that wasn’t all you two did,” Xander cut in. “So something’s digging up bodies out of graves?”

Buffy gave Xander a dawning look of horror. “Do you and Angel _talk_?”

Xander rolled his eyes. “He shows up to see if I’m safely in my house by nightfall. If I’m not, he follows me around until I am, and if I am my mom drags him into our house and feeds him human blood because she says pigs blood is terrible for his health. Anyway, that’s not important. Grave robbing is.”

The blonde girl clearly thought Xander’s interaction with her crush _was_ important, but Giles agreed with Xander.

“Grave robbing?” the librarian said curiously. “That’s new. Interesting.” He almost smiled a bit and Buffy’s eyebrows tried to escape her forehead.

“I _know_ you meant to say gross and disturbing,” she said. Giles suddenly noticed the looks he had gotten from both Xander and Buffy.

“Yes, yes, yes of course,” the man hastily agreed. “Uh, terrible thing. Must, must put a stop to it.” He paused awkwardly. “Damn it.”

Xander refrained with difficulty from rolling his eyes. “So…” he said, standing and walking so that he was in front of Giles. “Why does someone want to dig up graves? I mean, besides the whole organ trafficking shtick, but that’s almost too mundane a crime for Sunnydale.”

Giles grimaced. “Quite,” he said. “Well, I’ll, uh, collect some theories.” He looked over at Buffy. “Uh, it would help if we knew who the body belonged to.”

Buffy, naturally, had a ready answer. “Meredith Todd,” she said promptly. The blonde turned to Xander. “Ring a bell?”

Xander shook his head. “No.”

“She died recently. She was our age.” Xander couldn’t help but shrug.

“Drawing a blank.” Total blank. Maybe she’d been one of those quiet shy people that nobody really knew existed? Or maybe she went to a different school. There weren’t many of those in Sunnydale, but they did exist.

Giles walked over and tapped the computer with his fingertips. “Why don’t we ask Willow to, uh, fire this thing up and track Meredith down?” Buffy grinned and jumped up.

“Sounds like a plan to me!” she said. Then “Where’s Willow?”

*          *          *

The investigation into Meredith Todd turned wacky very quickly, as per the usual in Sunnydale. Apparently she and two other girls had all vanished from their graves, presumably for some voodoo guy’s zombie army. Xander wondered if he would be able to do anything to a zombie army. He knew really powerful demigods of Hades could summon armies of skeletons/ghosts/zombies depending on their strength and level of practice. Surely he could do the same, or at least control zombies that already existed?

Things got even more surreal after that. Cordelia and Angel had evidently stumbled onto a dumpster bin of dismembered girl’s body parts. And that blew _all_ the theories out of the water. Apparently you needed whole dead bodies to make zombie armies. And a flesh-eating demon wouldn’t bother to cut them up all nice and surgically before eating them. _And_ as Willow then pointed out, there were five or six guys in the Sunnydale science club alone who were capable of cutting up a body with surgical precision, and that wasn’t counting everywhere else in town (you know, like the _hospital_ and the _morgue_ ). So they were back at square one.

The only funny part of the day had been when Cordelia drafted Angel into driving her home. Xander had zero sympathy for Angel’s pathetically helpless looks of bewilderment as the teen queen fast-talked her way out of the library with him in tow. Actually, it was the funniest thing he’d seen in ages, especially considering it meant that for once Cordelia wasn’t dragging Xander off. He seriously didn’t know what her problem was lately.

After Xander finally escaped the library and study session himself he took a quick stop by home (Tony was snoring off a hangover on the couch and Mom was humming as she arranged a bouquet of fake flowers) and then headed out again into the night just as he’d done every night since summer. Xander had started patrolling sometime after beginning his swordplay lessons just so he would have real fighting experience.

At first he went out only shortly after dark and patrolled cemeteries known for a plethora of fledglings. When it became apparent that vampiric activity was almost nonexistent since the Master’s death, he took to going other places: back alleyways where demons would snack on the homeless, bars for humans that demons and vampires went looking for a meal in, and one or two demon bars where he could actually ask someone to fight him and they would oblige without trying to kill him.

Xander had even made a few friends amongst the neutral and nonhostile demon crowd in Sunnydale. One or two were the sort to like the idea of being friends with a demigod, but most of them seemed to just think he was a pretty cool person with his life-sucking tendencies and his magic jacket and sword. Xander had even been invited just a week ago to a round of kitten poker — “you only have to bring your own kittens, mate, and there’s some great deals”. Xander had declined at the time; mostly because he had no idea what kittens had to do with poker. He had asked Angel to look into it, and the guy had surprisingly agreed.

The teen wandered through an alleyway, his sword at the ready as he followed the feeling of violent death Xander had begun to associate with vampires especially. He came to an old abandoned factory building. The vampires were somewhere inside. Xander wrapped himself in the Mantle of Souls so that he melted into the shadows, making him incredibly hard to spot. Not invisible, though—yet. Xander couldn’t wait until he managed to earn the Helm of Invisibility. He climbed the ladder up the side of the building with caution.

He could see in through a window, and Xander nearly gasped at the sight of the tiny pale form of the stupid vampire kid who’d led Buffy to her death. Xander almost couldn’t believe his luck. All he had to do was climb down and sneak inside and that little brat would be hist—

Xander froze on the wall as the door creaked open below him and a group of vampires entered the building. The teen hung motionless against the ladder, the Mantle of Souls sliding up his arms and down his legs to hide him in shadow until the door clattered shut again. Xander jumped the rest of the way down, landing catlike on his feet — the one vampire perk he actually had as a dhampir. He and Angel had discovered it during the summer when Angel had startled Xander into falling off a mausoleum roof one evening. And speaking of the vampire, Angel suddenly appeared behind him.

“What are you doing?” the man hissed. Xander scowled up at him.

“I thought I was gonna be able to dust the Anointed One,” he said grumpily, “but apparently he invited friends over.”

Angel rolled his eyes. “Let’s focus on one emergency at a time,” he said softly. “After we’ve figured out this body snatching thing you and I can tell Buffy we found him and arrange an ambush so his guards won’t matter.”

Xander sighed. “Fine. You and I won’t be able to take that many vampires on our own anyway,” he admitted. “I think I’m gonna head home now.” Angel just nodded and fell in step next to Xander as he started walking.

“Hey, did you ever figure out what kitten poker was?” Xander asked curiously. Angel grimaced.

“It’s normal poker, except the stakes are live kittens. Which are usually eaten by the winners of the game.”

Xander made a face. “Oh, yuck!” He glanced at Angel. “D’you think they’d be offended if I didn’t eat any kitties I win?”

Angel’s eyebrow made an abortive twitch of surprise. “You still want to play?” Xander shrugged.

“I don’t see why not. So long as I don’t have to kill any kittens I win, and I don’t have to see them eat any kittens I bring to the table, I really don’t care. Circle of life, you know.” Xander then rolled his eyes when Angel didn’t even twitch at the Disney reference.

“I’ll come with you.”

The teen blinked. “Huh?”

“The first couple times you play I’ll play with you.” Angel shrugged uncomfortably. “For moral support or something.”

Xander stared at the man just a bit longer, but then shook himself and turned away. “Sure, whatever,” he said flippantly, but he had a considering look as he watched the vampire walk away after Angel dropped him off at his house.

When Xander arrived at school the next day extra early as per Giles’ request he didn’t exactly expect to be drafted into a locker search. It was still interesting, though. Giles made quibbly noises about how he totally didn’t condone this as a school official (then he borrowed Willow’s list and began helping) and Willow found a new copy of Scientific American. And then Xander opened Chris Epps’ locker, and they had found their guy. Buffy found even more incriminating stuff in the creeper Eric’s locker.

Seriously, Xander might be a partially-undead death godling, but even he found the idea of building the perfect girl squicky. Just eww. Like Pandora or Galatea to an extreme, and everybody knew how _those_ had turned out.

And Xander had never thought Chris to be that sort of creepy person. Eric, yes, but Chris… not so much. And Buffy and Willow agreed with him that Chris didn’t seem the type, but then they discovered that neither of their suspects had come to school that day. So much for Chris being a stand-up guy.

Of course, it only got worse from there. Chris and Eric had discarded all three heads from the three girls they’d dug up, which meant they still needed one more piece before their girl was finished. And according to Giles and Willow formaldehyde accelerated decay in brain cells, which meant the gruesome duo needed a head so fresh it hadn’t seen a morgue yet. Which was a problem, because…well, did he even need to say it?

The Scoobies made plans to investigate and then meet up at the game that night. Xander and Willow found nada at Eric’s house except for a truly frightening compilation of porn, so the two teens decided to rendezvous with Giles at the football game. Xander grinned at how cozy Giles and Miss Calendar looked, but he and Willow still made themselves comfortable in front of the pair while they waited for Buffy. Then Chris came running up like his tail was on fire.

“They- they’ve got Cordelia!” he gasped out.

Xander and Willow had been on their feet as soon as he arrived, but at this Giles and Jenny stood as well.

“Got Cordelia?” Giles asked. “What do you mean?”

Chris just beckoned them on. “No time! Buffy sent me to get you guys. I’ll tell you on the way!”

And tell them he did. He told them all about how he had used Frankenstein science to bring his brother back from the dead, and then he had promised to make his brother a girlfriend so that he wouldn’t be alone. Then, of course, he ran into the problem with the formaldehyde and Eric and Big Brother convinced Chris the only way to keep going was to actually kill someone. But Buffy showed up right as Chris was getting cold feet and gave him a way out. When Chris told them it was happening in the old science building Xander booked it, running headlong into a dim corner to shadow travel straight to the building.

He arrived to a scene of chaos. The room was on fire and Buffy was duking it out with a very scarred Daryl Epps. Xander gasped aloud as he saw the undead young man. Daryl’s soul felt…wrong to his death senses, like a square someone had shaved bits off to fit it into a circular hole. The guy fit so badly back into his body that Xander could see the green-blue ghostly haze surrounding him. Daryl was more possessing his body than living in it. Xander jumped forwards into the room just as Daryl rushed Buffy.

“Buffy! You take Cordelia!” he shouted, hitting Daryl with the flat of his sword to off-balance the zombified guy.

“Are you crazy?” Buffy shouted.

Xander dodged a punch from a strangely super-strong Daryl. “I think I can get rid of him easier than you can. He’s not right! You take care of Cordelia!”

“Would you stop arguing and get me out of here!” Cordelia shrieked. Buffy huffed but ran over to Cordelia and began trying to untie her.

Daryl tried to grab hold of Xander but he dodged out of the bigger guy’s grasp. Xander began summoning that cold power he had intimidated Angel with. The flames right around him began to fizzle out as Xander’s Mantle grew once again to form an intimidating aura of darkness around him. The flames around Cordelia and Buffy, on the other hand, started to jump higher and higher. Buffy finally gave up on untying Cordelia and just ripped her bonds to pieces. She helped the shaky cheerleader to her feet and untied the blindfold. Xander continued to focus only on Daryl.

The undead man seemed to have realized something was off, because he had begun backing away from Xander with naked fear on his face. Xander drew in a steady breath and exhaled. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes had turned black. He gripped the hilt of his sword tightly.

“Thanatos!” he called out. “I summon you!”

Buffy, Cordelia, and Daryl all gaped at the hooded skeletal figure that appeared above Xander’s head. It landed just behind him and solidified into the fairly attractive entity Xander had shown Cordelia pictures of only a few weeks ago.

“Can you remove him from his body?” Xander asked. The entity didn’t answer, instead stepping forwards and swinging his scythe at Daryl. It phased intangibly through his body, but a glowing blue form came with it. The now dead undead body fell bonelessly to the floor.

Giles and Willow finally arrived in the doorway, taking in the situation in an instant. They saw Xander standing with his sword drawn over a prone figure on the ground and Buffy and Cordelia were frozen in the middle of a nexus of fire. Willow and Giles spotted Eric, picked him up and dragged him out. Giles turned back and shouted at Buffy and Cordelia to move, and the girls unfroze and began to inch around the edge of the room, dodging flames. Xander started walking with them, reaching the door just in time for Miss Calendar to muffle a scream in her hands as she stared at the scythe-wielding figure following Xander out of the room. Chris, behind her, didn’t seem to notice anything though. His eyes slid straight across Death, but he definitely saw the ghost of his brother. Chris let out a gasp and a sob.

He held his hands up. “It’s okay,” Xander said hastily. “He’s with me.” Xander turned back to Thanatos and Daryl’s soul, which was being dragged along with them by the death scythe.

The ghost blinked. “Harris?” it whispered. A translucent bluish head turned towards the girls. “Cordelia?” Daryl began to shake. “What’ve I done? God, what’ve I done?”

Xander put a comforting hand on Daryl’s shoulder, and Miss Calendar sucked in another astonished breath when it didn’t go through the ghostly body.

“It’s alright,” Xander said. “Nothing you did after you died will be on your record. Your resurrection was handled badly enough it’s a wonder you didn’t go on a mindless rampage.”

Daryl sniffled. “Really?” He smiled a watery and ghostly smile as Xander nodded. The pale teen then turned back to his cousin.

“You can go now.”

Thanatos nodded gravely and began to fade away, ghost in tow. Xander suddenly shook his head as if he’d forgotten something and called out “Don’t touch the water, Daryl! That river’s dangerous!”

Then he went over to Buffy and Cordelia, slinging his arms around their shoulders and leading them out of the building. “Come on, guys,” he said. “We’d better get out before the firemen start to rush the building.” To the other four’s astonishment there were indeed firemen and fire trucks arranged outside the burning science building. Giles was speaking to one of the men, gesturing angrily. Xander popped up behind him.

“Hiya Giles!” he exclaimed cheerfully. The man jumped and clutched his chest with a “good God” and a gasp.

“You-you all made it out alright, then?” Giles asked, his eyes counting up everyone with Xander.

Miss Calendar stepped forwards with a smile and placed a hand on Giles’ arm. “We’re all okay, Rupert.”

The librarian nodded vaguely. “Yes, ah, good-” He turned back to the policeman he had been arguing with. “So sorry, officer.”

The man waved him off with an “it’s fine” and walked away. Giles smiled uncertainly back at Miss Calendar. Everyone was spreading out. Chris was stumbling over his explanations to Buffy, and Angel appeared behind them out of the turmoil. The vampire gave Xander a quick once-over from a distance before turning back to talk to Buffy. Giles got Miss Calendar a cup of coffee and stutteringly flirted with her, a small smile on both their faces. Xander sighed and bumped Willow’s shoulder.

“Well, I guess that makes it official,” he said morosely. “Everybody’s paired off. Vampire dads get dates. Hell, even the school librarian sees more action than me. You ever think that the world is a giant game of musical chairs, and the music’s stopped and we’re the only ones who don’t have a chair?”

Xander sighed.

Willow did as well as she agreed, “All the time.”

Cordelia came up to them suddenly. “Xander? I was just…um…wondering…about what you did in there…” Xander suddenly made a face and shook his head briefly. “But hey, I guess we can talk later! I’ll see you.”

Xander rolled his eyes and huffed as she walked away. “Man, I have no idea what her problem has been lately. She’s been acting all weird.” He grinned down at Willow. “So where were we?”

Willow smiled uncertainly. “Wondering why we never get dates.”

Yes. That. “Yeah,” Xander said, “so why do you think that is?” Willow just shrugged with another sigh.

That night Xander decided to skip patrol, but the next evening he was back out wandering the town. It was a Saturday, so there was bound to be only half the usual activity. Even the dumb and most oblivious Sunnydalers stayed inside on the weekends after dark. The only people to look out for were out-of-town-ers who didn’t know enough to stay safe. Strangely, Angel showed up much earlier than usual that night as Xander patrolled.

“So, I heard from Buffy that you summoned someone named Thanatos to take that kid’s soul away.”

Xander blinked up at the man. “Yeah, it was just a hunch that Thana could take care of it. I could feel his soul you know. It was all wrong, like mismatched puzzle pieces or salt in candy instead of sugar.”

Angel reared back. “You can sense souls?”

The teen wasn’t sure why that seemed to upset Angel so much…and then he remembered. “Yeah, I do,” he confirmed, giving the vampire a sideways look. “Yours actually fits pretty well. Nobody with my sort of power would ever realize you’d died and had your soul stuffed back into your body. Not like Daryl.” Xander shuddered.

Angel contemplated this silently as they walked around, and Xander went back to looking for monsters to beat up. After another two blocks and one scared up nest of small pig-like demons that had been harassing a young girl Angel finally spoke again.

“Buffy wants answers. Apparently she knows that we…talk? So she wanted me to tell you since she won’t see you until Monday.”

Xander sighed. “What does she want answers about? Giles and I have been giving them _some_ information. Before this whole Frankenstein thing came to light Giles was giving lessons on demigods and other exclusively pantheon-related supernatural beings. We plan to tell them soon, it’s just…”

Angel watched the teen as he sighed and slumped his shoulders a bit.

“I know we can’t keep it a secret much longer,” Xander said. “But could you ask her to wait a little while? Tell Buffy that I’ll tell her and Willow everything before Halloween.” Xander almost jumped out of his skin when Angel put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

“I’ll tell her,” the vampire promised, and then the hand was gone and Xander could relax.

Xander shook himself and said, “I think I’m just going to swing by the playground on Main Street before I head home. Sometimes people waiting on the bus let their kids wander off there, and I noticed some vampires hanging around last week.”

Angel sighed. “Just be careful,” he said.

The teen blinked, but he certainly didn’t protest as Angel went off to do his own thing. Deadboy was letting him go off on his own? Xander had cottoned on fairly quickly that Angel seemed to be taking the “dad” thing seriously. The guy showed up halfway through every one of Xander’s patrols and followed him around until he was safely at home. It was kind of nice, but also sort of annoying, so it was cool that the guy apparently trusted him to go off on his own now. Xander whistled as he headed up Main Street to the bus stop.

He scared up a crowd of vampires and made short work of them. Since he’d summoned Thana to take care of Daryl’s soul, his Mantle had gained some special features, and now if undead things touched it, the jacket drained life like touching Xander’s skin would — only much, much faster. So now any vamps that managed to avoid his sword or catch him and hold him were basically drained of all life and turned to dust by Xander’s magic jacket. He loved his jacket.

Xander sat down to catch his breath a bit on one of the benches in the small playground just behind the _Welcome to Sunnydale_ sign. He pulled a soda out of his bottomless pockets and opened it. He took a sip with a smile. It hadn’t gone fizz-crazy, and it was still cold. Xander really, really loved his jacket.

The silence of the night was broken by the roar of a car engine. Xander watched with bemusement as a classic 1958 Dodge Desoto FireFlite (it was a cool car, okay?) crashed through the _Welcome to Sunnydale_ sign and screeched to a halt. A man with bleached blond hair strolled out of the car and over to the curb. Xander sighed and began to walk over, planning to warn the obvious rebel about the police patrol that would be coming by soon. He paused when he saw the vampiric face, but just rolled his eyes and kept on walking. It was probably some out-of-town bigshot wanting to make a name for himself on the Hellmouth. Xander would get a feel for the guy’s motives, and then decide whether to just dust him and be done with the problem or not.

As he approached, though, Xander suddenly realized he could feel both a vampire and a dying person in this blond vamp’s fabulously awesome car. No…it was one person. A dying vampire? What could vampires even die of that would make one feel like a terminally ill human? This night was getting more interesting by the second.

The blond vampire had by this time fished a cigarette and a lighter out of his heavy duster and had taken a drag. “Home sweet home,” Xander heard the British accent mutter. His curiosity only grew.

“You know,” the vampire whirled around, spluttering on his cigarette, “There’s a police patrol that comes by in about fifteen minutes or so. Unless you want them bothering you about the sign you’ll want to clear out soon.”

The vamp gaped, his game face melting away to reveal young and rather attractive features. “How the _hell_ ” he wheezed “did you sneak up on me?”

Xander rolled his eyes. “It isn’t as if you weren’t a bit distracted,” he pointed out. The vamp grimaced. “Besides, I have an advantage,” Xander added. He loved his goddam jacket.

The vampire didn’t quite follow. “Advantage?” he asked. Xander grinned.

“I’ve got a magical jacket from my granddad,” he said. The teen smirked. “You put a finger on it and you’ll dust faster than I can say boo. And that’s just _one_ perk.” Xander took another sip from his soda.

“Really?” Blondie looked curious. “So it’s enchanted or summat?”

Xander laughed. “Something like that.” He eyed the vampire consideringly. “Hey, I’ve got a proposition for you Mr. Vampire.”

Said creature of the night laughed as well at that. “It’s Spike,” he said. Xander nodded graciously.

“Spike then. Proposition? Want to hear?”

The now named Spike shrugged. “Go for it.”

Xander smiled. “I know all the biggest vampire haunts currently in town, and I have an in with the Slayer currently living here. I’ll give you some good advice on where to live and where to avoid during the Slayer’s patrol hours if you promise not to try and start any Apocalypse type stuff or directly attack Sunnydale High School.”

Spike blinked. “Wot, really? Not worried I’m going to wreak havoc? Just gonna let me live and let live? I doubt the Slayer’d be down with that.”

Xander rolled his eyes. “I’m more of a die and let die kind of guy, but that’s basically the gist of it, yeah. And honestly, if the Slayer doesn’t see or hear of you doing anything too obvious, she won’t specifically come after you. After all, I doubt you’re gonna stir up trouble with your sick friend in the back seat of the car.”

The teen found himself slammed up against the side of the car in the blink of an eye, but Spike was forced to hastily let go of him when the vampire realized his hand was shriveling up. Even so, the man hovered menacingly above Xander with a ferocious glare. A weak voice came from inside the car.

“Spike?” the female voice asked in a dazed tone. Spike ignored her.

“Whaddya mean by that?” Spike growled, his game face on and his clawed hands clenched into fists. Xander put up his hands defensively.

“Whoa, whoa, buddy, hey! I didn’t mean anything by it. I mean, I can sense death, and death feels like all sorts of things. You feel like violence and pain and hatred because you kill people, and your friend feels like that too only she also feels like decay and listlessness and the only other people I know who feel like that are the terminally ill patients my mom’s friend works with, so I wasn’t threatening anything. I mean, I can’t help the fact that I’m a godling and I can tell when people are dying, can you stop getting all in my face please?”

When Xander finally ran out of words Spike blinked again curiously, his vampiric features melting away again. “You’ve really got a mouth on you, haven’t you?” Xander smiled sheepishly and the vampire took a step back and watched Xander with a curious look on his face. “Godling, huh? What’re you doing here in dear old Sunnyhell?” Xander made a face.

“It’s for my health, or power, or something. I was originally gonna be just a massively overpowered demigod with vampire blood, but Mom knew a ritual to turn me into a baby god. Part of that was harnessing the energy of the rift from the Hellmouth to basically feed me power the first ten years of my life. And can you maybe not mention this to anyone? Mom will smite me _and_ you if she knows I told some random vampire about us.”

Spike laughed. He had a surprisingly nice laugh for a vampire. “Sure, lad, I won’t tell anyone.” He lit up another cigarette and his eyes flickered to the car. “So…she’s dying?”

There was a strange sort of desperate sadness in Spike’s voice, and Xander had to focus very hard to keep from gaping at him unattractively. He hadn’t known non-Angel vampires could legitimately be grieved by things. He retained enough presence of mind to nod.

“…yeah, yeah she is.” Xander hesitated. “You didn’t know?”

Spike shrugged uncomfortably, turning away from the teen. “She’s not been well for some months, but I didn’t ever really think it was anything serious,” he said softly. Blue eyes skittered back to Xander. “D’you know if there’s anything that can be done? I was hoping the energy of the Hellmouth would be enough to save her.” Man, this guy had no human soul and was acting more human than Angel did most days. Xander wondered how this vampire had retained such a sense of… _care_ , even if it was for a fellow vampire.

Xander sighed. “I’m not a health meter; I can just sense the death around her. And if it’s this strong, the Hellmouth likely won’t help. I can think of two things off the top of my head that would do anything based on what I do know about vampires. One, Sire’s blood might do something. Then again it might not, but it’s always useful to try if you know where her Sire is.”

Spike frowned when Xander stopped talking. “And the second thing?” he demanded roughly, stepping forward intimidatingly again.

Now it was Xander who shrugged with discomfort. “I have to build a court to complete my transformation into a god. If I turned her into a chthonic goddess under the geis of my power she’d be totally healthy, but I won’t do that unless I know you both better.” Xander avoided the vampire’s gaze.

“Besides,” he said, “she probably wouldn’t want to be under my command for the rest of eternity. I’m a god of death, so I’ll exist even after time itself, and she’d basically be my servant or bodyguard, based on how I elevate her power, for the rest of eternity.”

Spike hummed, his gaze distant with heavy thought. Then the man shook himself and took a drag on his cigarette. “That deal still on?” he asked lightly. Xander blinked and frowned in confusion for an instant before remembering.

“Oh, yeah, that! Totally still on.” He grinned up at Spike. “I find myself wanting to be neighborly for once. Strange, that.”

The vampire smirked around his cigarette. “Strange indeed. Alright, give me the low-down. I ‘aven’t been here in about a century or so, so accurate information would be nice.”

Xander grinned and started to talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked this chapter. What did you think of your first look at Spike?  
> See you all in a month!


	6. Part 1, Legacy: Spike Takes Charge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spike gets down to business and makes further deals with the young godling boy.
> 
> Also known as: Buffy meets Spike in very different circumstances and comes to entirely wrong conclusions.

Spike entered the bar with the same flair with which he did everything. He growled at one little demon and took its seat with a rough shove before rapping his knuckles on the wood of the counter.

“Whiskey and blood, mate,” he said. The bartender nodded and mixed the drink up quickly. Spike took a long sip and sat back.

Several members of the clientele had stiffened or drew back at his power play when he entered, but many now began to relax. One vampire dropped into a seat next to him.

“You new in town?” the stranger asked. Spike smirked.

“Just back in. I was here a while ago visiting family, but I haven’t been around in ages.”

The other vampire nodded. “Well if you want good work the Anointed One’s always got room for more. He’s been revitalizing the Order of Aurelius after the Slayer killed the Master last spring.”

Spike’s eyebrows went up. “That so.” That godling kid had mentioned the Anointed One, but mainly in an “avoid being caught around him” sort of way. Apparently he and the Slayer were planning a raid on the kid vampire’s place of residence soon. Some sort of revenge shtick, going by the godling’s tone of voice.

The godling had been a great source of information, both spoken and stuff the teen likely didn’t realize he was giving away. It made sense, from the little the teenage semi-immortal had said he had been raised in a human environment, which likely contributed to his lack of subtlety. The godling had told Spike all about the Master and how the Slayer had killed him after foiling his plans all year. The kid also talked a lot about the supernatural problems Sunnydale High regularly had, and his request to leave the school alone made a little more sense after all Spike had heard. He had been a font of information about the other supernatural goings on in town as well.

The vampire sitting next to him was now waxing eloquent about the Anointed One’s calling and how serving this miniature kid vampire was apparently a dream job. Spike laughed aloud. The vampire gave him a dirty look and he scoffed a bit.

“Sorry, just, I heard the guy got himself beaten by a group of kids. Sure, they were led by the Slayer, but still. She’s a weird one, isn’t she? A Slayer that goes to high school like a normal girl?”

Another demon piped up. “ _I_ heard she was missed by the Watcher’s Council. So she’s not got any proper training.” His friend shook a shaggy green head.

“She’s still plenty lethal. And that buddy of hers with the Stygian sword.” Both demons shuddered.

“Some chap’s got a Stygian sword?” Spike asked in fascination. “Wouldn’t mind getting me one of those.”

The bartender refilled his drink. “Best not to risk it, honestly,” Willy said. “Xander may be young, but he’s of demigod heritage. Those are always tricky to fight. Besides, everyone around here who’s just living life likes him well enough to fuss if he turned up dead.”

“And that’s not mentioning sweet little Jessica Harris would rip the poor fool’s spine out with her bare hands,” an amused-looking demon from the back called out. “You young ones won’t remember the time of the gods, but trust me when I say that demigod women on rampage are scarier than Slayers.”

Spike blinked. “Demigod?” Then he remembered what the godling had said about hiding the fact that he was a godling and his mother was a goddess. He supposed demigod or demon would be the only believable cover-stories. That kind of power was hard to hide, especially when you were still growing into it like the kid was. He grinned. Xander, huh?

“Never mind. I met him earlier. Didn’t know he had any fancy toys besides that nifty jacket of his. He told me it enhances some ability his skin has to turn vampires to dust.”

Now it was the Anointed One’s groupie who scoffed. “That boy has no real power beyond his magical trinkets. And soon he and the Slayer will fall before the power—”

He exploded into dust as Spike drove a stake through his heart. Spike then casually sat back and took another sip of his drink, setting the stake on the counter next to him.

“Sorry ‘bout the mess,” Spike said to Willy the bartender. “He was giving me earache.”

Perhaps he’d go check out this Anointed guy himself. Who knew, Xander might be inclined to give Spike and Drusilla more favors if they took care of the Anointed One for the Slayer. Spike had been intrigued by the boy’s description of how he could turn a vampire into a god. Spike smirked. It didn’t hurt that the kid was cute with power to spare. It really didn’t.

Two days later Spike sighed as he again tried to convince Drusilla to stay at the hideout he’d set up for them while he went to the factory the Anointed One had set up shop in. Dru was being stubborn again, and was insistent that she accompany him, but Spike didn’t need the distraction.

“C’mon sweetheart,” Spike wheedled. “You know you’re not well. You just stay here and have a tea party while I take out the trash.”

Dru’s head listed to one side as her manic eyes stared up at him. “You want to impress his Highness, don’t you? Are we going to swear to him, Spike?”

Spike shrugged. “Don’t know yet. I need more information.” He ran his hands over Dru’s shoulders. “You deserve to be a goddess, though. Then people would worship you as they should.”

Drusilla smiled at him vacantly. “You’ll look nice with wings.” Spike brushed it off as another one of her nonsensical remarks.

“Now, are you gonna stay here while I take care of business, or do I have to chain you to the bed?”

That godling kid had fixed them up with a really nice place. It was an old abandoned house in the posh part of town, with very few windows and lots of heavy drapes wherever light could shine in. There were also nice bedrooms, offices and meeting areas, and some basement rooms that would be easy to transform into playrooms for him and Dru. And surprisingly, Xander had asked nothing in return. Spike was wary of accepting free favors, but the kid was so damn open. He didn’t quite seem to understand the concept of give and take, where the focus was supposed to be always trying to _take_ more than you _give_.

Dru shrugged. “Bring me back something pretty?” she requested, giving in with ill grace. Spike smiled at her, his head tilting to the side.

“How about I bring you back a meal?” When Dru turned away he sighed. “You need to eat, love.”

“M’not hungry,” Drusilla murmured, her eyes wandering. “Spikey, I’m cold.” Spike wrapped a blanket around her and sat her down gently.

“You just snuggle in here, love. I’ll bring you back some new toys, I promise.”

The brunette vampire gazed off into the distance as her Childe left the room. She smiled vacantly. “Very nice with wings, indeed,” she said softly. Then Dru turned sharply to the box full of dolls yet to be unpacked.

“Now don’t you go saying mean things about His Highness, Miss Edith. T’isn’t mannerly.” She sat contrarily on the box and continued to lecture her doll.

*          *          *

Spike had approached the factory housing the Anointed One with caution. According to Xander’s intel, the little vampire had nearly twenty followers — a death trap for anyone stupid enough to try and kill them all at once. That wasn’t Spike’s plan, of course, but he still didn’t intend to be stupid. Ordinarily he loved a good entrance, but he _could_ be inconspicuous when the occasion warranted it.  But then, watching this group of morons now, Spike doubted he’d needed all that much caution, or subtlety for that matter.

The vampires inside the factory were all converged in the main room of the building. Bloody gits hadn’t even set a watch outside.  No one challenged him as he walked into the factory’s main room; they were all too busy conducting some ritual to even notice an intruder.

Spike’s eyebrows went up in disbelief as he recognized the cant. They were performing a ritual to summon the spirit of St Vigeous. Spike didn’t have much of an opinion on the vampire saint. At least, he didn’t have much of a good opinion. The guy was only famous because he had killed a bunch of European peasants during the Dark Ages. Honestly, that was a little like throwing water into the harbor. Peasants had died all the time back then. To make things even less impressive, the idiot hadn’t even survived past his glory days. Not like the Whirlwind.

Spike smirked to himself. If bloody death was all that was needed to achieve vampiric sainthood there’d doubtless be people worshiping his old gang in a century or so. Of the four of them, only Darla had died so far (and that was only according to that godling Xander). Angelus was still AWOL, but Spike was sure the bastard would turn up when he least wanted him to.

His smirk faded. Wankers still hadn’t noticed him. Spike rolled his eyes and stepped into the dim lighting of the factory.

“Y’know,” he said, his echoing voice bringing the ritual to a screeching halt, “some people might say that demons what need help from some has-been who’s been dead for centuries are demons who’re just a useless lot of nancy boys.”

Spike grinned at the outraged silence as the vampires in the room turned to face him as one. He paused for only a second and then continued. “Matter of fact, I’m one who would say that.”

He strode forwards with calm arrogance, arms folded over his chest and ignoring the rising growls. He focused solely on the child in the middle of the group. Spike grinned as he had to lean down to be at eye-level with the child vampire. “You’re that Anointed Guy, aren’t you?” he asked nonchalantly. “I’ve read about you.”

That was a bit of a test, and a warning. Most fledges only had two things on their minds — food and shelter. Like a baby. It was only Master vampires and older Childer who ever bothered to read or keep up with society, so the tidbit that he was one of these should put the child-like vampire on guard. But the kid barely twitched at his comment. Either overconfident or just plain dumb, Spike decided. He’d been a bit worried the Anointed One had some sort of special power, but he was feeling surer of himself now. Spike sauntered forward with seeming casualness as if he hadn’t just deliberately shoved a stick into a hornets’ nest.

“How dare you!” one of the minions spoke up, moving forward threateningly. “You have ruined the ritual! You will pay penance for that!”

Spike smirked and cocked an eyebrow. “Will I?” he asked. He deliberately turned his back and took out a cigarette. The speaker approached rapidly, and Spike lit his cig. He swung his fist out just in time to drop his attacker with one blow, all without looking. It always impressed vampires as young as these when you could take someone down without even glancing in their direction.

He turned back around and stepped over the body without acknowledging it was there, bearing down in the Anointed One’s face again. “So you’re the Master’s legacy?” he scoffed. “You’re hardly out of the grave, little fledge.”

Many of the vampires around them bristled at his irreverent attitude, but Spike just blew smoke in the boy’s face and smirked. The child vampire frowned.

“Who are you?” the child asked. Spike’s smirk morphed into a dangerous grin.

“Spike. Couple years back I went by Will the Bloody. Heard of me?”

Whispers broke out among the other vampires, and the Anointed One frowned. Still easily dominating the room, Spike strolled over to the remnants of the ritual circle, scoffing at the incense burners and painted symbols. He blithely crossed the spell circle’s boundary and stopped in the center, taking another drag on his cigarette before deliberately dropping it inside their sacred circle. He knew that would both impress and scandalize the younger and more impressionable vampires. Spike ground the cig under his heel.

“I’m moving in, boys. Taking over.” His eyes bored into the Anointed One. “As a senior member of Clan Aurelius, I claim leadership.”

The muttering grew as some of them realized what was happening. As a fellow member of the Aurelius bloodline, Spike had equal rights to the Anointed One as neither was sire or fledge to the other. So if he wanted, Spike could claim leadership, clean house, and become the new Master. Oh, most of the time Spike ignored all the ceremony and rules of vampire courts with gleeful abandon, but he’d rather poach someone else’s army than make his own. He was lazy that way.

The Anointed kid still did nothing but stare. He hadn’t even gone into game face once. Spike strode forward with three quick steps, a stake materializing in his hand. The vampires around scattered as he approached, and he dusted the child vampire without preamble.

A few vampires charged him with angry yells, but Spike downed them with almost insulting ease and staked them as well. Then, he threw his remaining stake at the one vampire he’d knocked down earlier. The sharpened bit of wood shot unerringly at the hapless vampire who’d only just gotten back to his feet. The idiot exploded into dust. Spike grinned at the group of vampires now standing in an uncertain circle around him.

“From now on, we’re gonna have little less ritual and a little more _fun_ around here,” he said. He turned slowly in a circle to gauge the reactions of all the fledges in the room. Most of them looked fearful, but still magnetically drawn to Spike’s little power play. Good.

“So, what were you all asking St. Vigeous for?”

The minions shuffled their feet for a moment before one of them took a half a step forward. “We were raising power to take out the Slayer on Saturday. Jacob, the one you killed last, he was going to be our champion.”

Spike laughed mockingly. “Well, that would have been a spectacular fiasco. Too bad I staked him, we could have sold tickets.” He took a step forwards and all the vampires shuffled away. Spike almost laughed again, but instead he glared menacingly and prowled around them.

“First order of business is this location. We’re changing address. That kid might’ve been willing to slob around here, but I’ve got a certain class.” Well, Dru did, and what his Dark Princess wanted his Dark Princess got. He searched his pockets for pen and paper and scribbled down the address to his home base.

“You -” Spike pointed to the vampire who’d spoken up about the ritual, “you’re in charge. Take the boys to this address and set up shop. Make sure you take care of security, set up a watch, that sort of thing. And stake anyone who tries to run off or do anything stupid. Are we clear?”

The minion nodded in startled submission, accepting the folded paper with the address written on it. “Yes, sir,” he stammered. Spike would keep an eye on that one; he might be a little more intelligent than the others, maybe even worth keeping around.

“Well,” Spike said, sweeping past the minions so that his coat billowed behind him, “I’ve got a little business to attend to. I expect everything to be in order when I get back, or none of you will live past sunrise.”

None of the vampires dared object, either too young or too intimidated to argue with the older and more dangerous vampire. Spike paused just before leaving.

“And one more thing. There’s a vampire already at the house. She may look loony or even silly, but she’d kill all of you for fun, so don’t provoke her. And if anyone so much as gives her the teary eyes, you’ll find out why they called me Spike now along with the Bloody.” Frantic nods were his answer. Spike smirked again and swept out of the building.

*          *          *

Xander laughed at Buffy, who was slumped over a table at the Bronze.

“You don’t understand, okay?” she whined. “Mom had this talk with Snyder and now she’s been looking all thoughtful and worried-mother and she won’t tell me what he said!”

“I’m sure you mom wouldn’t believe anything real bad he might have said about you,” Willow said encouragingly. “I mean, not even the other teachers like him. They would have told her he’s full of it.”

Buffy just groaned into the wood of the table.

Xander grinned. “Either of you planning to dance?” he asked. Buffy waved a floppy hand.

“You go, Xan’. Imma lay here and pretend my world isn’t ending.”

“Maybe soda would help,” Willow said encouragingly. “Let’s go get something to drink. Ooh! Or French fries!”

“Kay…”

Xander grinned again as Willow led Buffy to the bar. He bobbed his head in time to the music and moved towards the dance floor. Buffy would survive her mom’s encounter with Snyder. After all, Xander’s mom had come to Parent Teacher night for the first time _ever_ , and she had made good friends with Mrs. Summers while she was there. His mom would counteract any poison Snyder tried to feed Buffy’s mom.

“Well, well,” a voice suddenly purred in Xander’s ear. “What’s a handsome thing like you doing all alone on the dance floor?”

Xander jumped out of his skin, swinging around in alarm. He gasped when he saw the recognizable peroxide blonde hair. “Spike!” Xander clutched his chest. “Don’t _do_ that, man! You nearly made me shadow under my bed!”

Then the vampire’s words registered, and a prominent flush crept up Xander’s paper-pale skin. “…did you just call me handsome?” he asked.

Spike shrugged with a small grin that made him look surprisingly boyish. “Just speaking truth, mate.”

Xander’s mouth opened and closed. “O…kay…” He decided to just ignore it. Maybe then it would go away. He hoped. Denial, thy name is Xander.

“So what are you doing here?” he asked. “I would have thought Willy’s was more your speed if you’re looking for drinks. They’ve got real English beer according to De- my dad.”

Spike lifted an eyebrow at the swift correction. “What was that?”

Xander blushed again and shrugged. “I didn’t know my dad was, um, related to me when I first met him. And I didn’t really like him, so I called him a ton of names. One of which was Deadboy, because you know, vampire.”

“Did he not know you were his kid either? I can’t see many sires allowing such disrespect. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s hilarious, but then I was never one for authority.”

The teen grimaced uncomfortably. “Nobody knew except my mom. Then this past summer she ran into him and it was like, ‘oh hi again. Remember me? I had your kid and by the way, I’m a goddess.’ I didn’t even know he was capable of facial expressions before that night.”

Spike laughed, clearly picturing the situation. “That must have been a riot.”

Xander just shrugged again. “Yeah, I guess. So what’re you here for?”

The vampire smirked, leaning down over the teen. “Couldn’t I just come and say hi to my new friend?” he murmured, watching Xander through his long eyelashes.

Xander pushed ineffectually at Spike’s chest and then took a step back. “Not like that!” he protested.

Spike just cocked an eyebrow and stood down, relaxing as he did so. “Came to tell you I took care of the Annoying One,” he said.

“Huh? Wait, really?” The kid blinked his dark eyes in surprise.

The vampire shrugged. “I need minions to help me care for Drusilla. You lot would have just dusted them all — I’ll probably still dust most of them, but I’ll keep a few of the smarter ones to help me fetch and carry.”

Xander thought hard for a moment.

“Just don’t let them make new vampires or attack too many innocent people and I won’t tell Buffy,” he promised. Spike smiled at him and stuck out his hand.

“Done!” the vampire exclaimed. Xander pulled the long sleeve of his sweater down to cover his palm and he shook the proffered hand. Even so, he let go quickly, aware the sleeve was a poor barrier against his death-draining powers.

“So…Drusilla’s the name of your sick friend?” he asked curiously. Spike nodded.

“She may want to meet you soon.”

Xander smiled at him. “Just bring her to the Bronze, I guess. Or if you don’t want to do that, leave a message with Willy and I’ll get it.”

“Righto,” Spike agreed. He winced as a new singer stepped up to the mike and began caterwauling.

“Are you sure this is music?” he asked. “Hurts my ears.”

Xander laughed.

“Oh, come on you old vampire,” he teased. “Live with the times!”

Spike snorted, but then he grinned mischievously and swung Xander up in some sort of dance move. They danced for a few minutes, Xander mostly swept away by the taller man and the music. He laughed a bit, surprised but enjoying himself. Then, the tall vampire twisted around him and then kept walking in one smooth motion. Xander stood and stared after him in confusion, slightly hurt at Spike’s abrupt exit.

“Who was that?”

Xander jumped at Buffy’s voice, Spike’s sudden departure now making perfect sense.

“Oh, just a new guy in town,” Xander said. “I met him the other day.”

Buffy blinked. “Huh. He looked a bit old to be at the Bronze.”

Xander shrugged. “He’s apparently trying out every bar and dance spot in town to pick his favorite.”

Buffy hummed and then grinned wickedly. “So, was I imagining things or was he flirting with you? He was totally hot; I didn’t know you were into guys.”

Xander groaned and buried his red face in his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's chapter 6! Hope you enjoy. I may end up posting chapters 7 and 8 together in July because they are basically a two-parter; they go together. I've not decided yet for sure, though. At the very least you lot will get Chapter 7, Human Sacrifice, at the start of July.
> 
> See you all then!


	7. Part 1, Legacy: Human Sacrifice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buffy's exchange student is not what she seems. Xander's powers continue to vary in usefulness.

Suffice to say that the brief glance Buffy got of Spike distracted her from the fact that her mom had talked with Snyder. By the same time the next week Buffy was still asking Xander about his “mysterious friend”. It didn’t help that she had apparently gone off her normal patrol routes a few days later and had seen Xander and Spike talking quietly outside Willy’s Bar. Spike had just been arranging Xander’s first meeting with Drusilla, but all Buffy saw was the two of them standing together talking quietly. Now she had it in her head that Xander had a crush on the handsome out-of-towner.

Well, Xander thought optimistically, at least she didn’t know Spike was a vampire. Then she’d be trying to stake him, not convince Xander to date him. Thankfully, Mrs. Summers found the perfect way to distract Buffy once again.

“This is so unfair,” the blonde girl moaned, walking down the sun-lit path towards the museum. Xander smirked from behind his black shades. His eyes were rather sensitive to the sun.

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” Willow told her. Buffy pouted.

“It’s the Uber-suck,” she insisted. “Mom could’ve at least _warned_ me.”

Xander grinned at the two girls as they went up the steps to the museum entrance. “Well, a lot of parents are doing it this year. It’s part of this whole cultural exchange magilla. The exhibit, the dance...”

Willow hopped up and down excitedly. “I have the best costume for the dance!” Xander laughed.

“Wanna bet on it? Mom got me traditional stuff to wear!” Willow gave him a challenging yet confused look, opening her mouth to retort, but Buffy wasn’t to be distracted.

“A complete stranger in my house for _two weeks_. I’m gonna be insane!” she nodded firmly. “A danger to myself and others within three days, I swear.”

Xander still wasn’t quite sure he understood her problem. “I think the exchange student program’s cool.” Buffy gave him an incredulous look and Xander protested, “I do! It’s a beautiful melding of two cultures. Or more than two, actually.”

Buffy rolled her eyes at him. “Have _you_ ever done an exchange program?” Xander grimaced.

“Tony tried to sell me to some Armenians once. Does that count?”

Buffy made that weird uncomfortable face she always made when he started talking about Tony the Jerk, and an awkward silence fell over their little group as they entered the museum. Cordelia walked past them chattering excitedly to one of her girlfriends. Xander ducked behind Willow and let his jacket shadow his form a bit. He was still trying to avoid Cordelia, who was still strangely interested in him, and he’d discovered if he deliberately drew on the magic of his jacket it obscured him a little and made him less noticeable to the people around him.

But then Buffy walked right up to Cordelia. Xander resisted the urge to pull the Slayer back into the safe zone.

“What’re you looking at?” Buffy asked, sidling up on Cordelia’s unpeopled side.

Cordelia hardly glanced at her. “Pictures of our exchange students,” she said. Cordelia held out her flier. “Look. 100% Swedish, 100% gorgeous, 100% staying at my house!” She hugged the flier to her chest. Xander wondered if the Swedish hunk would distract her from her fascination with Xander’s death-god-ness (Cordelia’s words).

“So,” she asked Buffy, “how’s yours? Visually, I mean.”

Buffy just shrugged. “I don’t know. Guy like?”

Xander snickered. “Trying for fewest words description, Buffy?” Some small part of him that still had a crush on her was worried she would start liking the _male_ exchange student, but the larger part was starting to acknowledge that Buffy would likely never see him as potentially datable. She was trying to convince him to date what she thought was an out-of-towner _guy_! Girls don’t date friends they think are gay.

Buffy, on her part, shrugged again. “I was just told ‘guy’.” Cordelia was not impressed.

“You didn’t look at him first?” And that was the judgiest tone Xander had heard since the last time Cordelia had judged something. “He could be dogly,” she explained. Xander wasn’t certain that was a real insult, but Cordelia just gave Buffy a pitying look and wandered off with the parting comment: “You live on the edge.” She sauntered off, and Xander repressed a cheer at the way she hadn’t noticed him at all.

They walked among the display cases, and Xander got to wow Buffy and Willow with the knowledge he had of the few Greek artifacts at the museum. Unfortunately, for obvious reasons most of this exhibit’s stuff was from Central and South America. The trio stopped at the end of a row of display cases, and Buffy drew their attention to one of the class’s chronic misbehavers.

“What’s he doing?” she asked.

Xander snickered. “Uh, that’s Rodney Munson. He’s God’s gift to the bell curve.” Translation: he stoopid and he like doing “bad” things. He was one of those people so monumentally stupid his getting vamped because he’d done something dumb was almost inevitable. “What he lacks in smarts he makes up in lack of smarts,” he finished. He felt that was a fairly accurate summary of Rodney’s character. And he had even left out the guy’s bullying habits.

Unfortunately Willow decided to include them. “You just don’t like him ‘cause of that time he beat you up every day for five years,” she said. Xander rolled his eyes as Buffy giggled.

“Yeah. I’m irrational that way,” he said dryly.

Buffy grinned. “I’d better stop him before he gets in trouble,” she said, stepping forwards. Then Willow stopped her.

“I got it,” she said with an amused smile. “The non-violent approach is probably better here.” And she went over to Rodney and began talking to him. Buffy pouted.

“I wasn’t gonna use violence,” she complained. “I don’t always use violence.” She looked uncertainly up at Xander. “Do I?” she asked.

“The important thing is _you_ believe that,” Xander told her. Buffy just pouted harder.

Then, the museum guide returned to lead the students to the next exhibit.

“Welcome, students,” he said. “We shall now proceed into the Incan burial chamber. The _human sacrifice_ is about to begin.”

Xander rolled his eyes and Buffy shot him a curious look. “What?” she asked him.

“It’s a typical museum trick,” Xander explained. “Promise human sacrifice, deliver old pots and...pans.” His head snapped around so fast it nearly snapped off as an aura of pain and loneliness almost overwhelmed him. Something very bad had happened to someone in this room.

“Xander?”

The teen in question shook his head vaguely. “Uh- nothing.” Buffy shot him a look, but the guide was still talking, and suddenly Xander was very interested in what he had to say. Willow just looked between them, confused. “Five hundred years ago, the Incan people chose a beautiful teenage girl to become their princess.”

They took the steps up to a platform where the Incan stone coffin and mummy were on display.

Willow sighed. “I hope this story ends with, ‘And she lived happily ever after.’”

Xander looked down into the coffin and shuddered. Something was seriously, seriously wrong with that corpse. “No,” he answered Willow distractedly, “I think it ends with, ‘And she became a scary, discolored, shriveled mummy.’“

He dimly registered the guide’s next words. “The Incan people sacrificed their princess to the mountain god Sebancaya, an offering buried alive for eternity in this dark tomb.”

Willow looked rather sad. “They could’ve at least wrapped her in those nice white bandages, like in the movies?”

Xander laughed rather breathlessly. “They only really did that in Egypt and the Middle East. In Greece someone of this importance would probably have been cremated after ritual sacrifice.” Willow made an eew sound.

“The princess remained there protected only by a cursed seal placed there—” the guide pointed to the plate in the mummy’s hands “—as a warning to any who would wake her.”

Xander looked down at the place where the guide had pointed, to the plate in the mummy’s hands. He probably wouldn’t have noticed it on his own, but now that his attention was drawn he could feel the death magic in the artefact. Xander would bet a hundred dollars he didn’t have that the curse the guide was talking about was totally real. He abruptly stepped back and tried to change the subject.

“So,” he said, casting about for something to say, “Buffy, when’s exchange-o boy making his appearance?”

Buffy stared at him in concern, but she answered his question anyway. “His name’s Ampata. Gonna be at the bus station tomorrow night.”

“Oooh. The Sunnydale bus depot,” Xander babbled. “Classy! What a better way to introduce someone to our country than with the stench of urine.” Buffy’s eyes narrowed, and as they exited that exhibit Buffy dragged Xander into an alcove. Willow followed, looking confused.

“Okay,” she said, “what’s wrong?”

“What? Wrong?” Xander blinked guilelessly. “Nothing’s wrong.” Buffy glared.

“Xan- _der_ …”

He grimaced. “Let’s just say the mummy’s curse is real. It was awful.”

Buffy sucked in a breath and glanced over her shoulder at the exit to the mummy exhibit, but Willow just frowned. “What do you mean, the curse is real? How would you know?”

Xander cringed just a bit. “I can…uh…sense death.” Willow blinked.

“Wait, what?”

He sighed. “It’s why I can patrol on my own. Even if I’m not as strong as Buffy, I can sense vampires before I see them, you know because they’re both dead _and_ they kill people, so I can ambush them.”

Willow was frowning.

“And that mummy in there doesn’t feel like a dead thing. It feels like an alive thing, only with magic like my jacket on it.” He tugged at the silky black fabric of his Mantle to highlight his point.

“Do you think it’s going to be a problem?” Buffy asked seriously. Xander could only shrug.

“So long as nobody messes with it the mummy should just keep on keeping on. Unless it has a history of killing things when it’s sent on tour.”

Xander and Buffy stared at each other in dawning horror, Willow still frowning as she looked between them.

“If we think it’s dangerous shouldn’t we go-”

Xander and Buffy finished for her. “To the library.” And then they were all moving so there wasn’t any more talking.

*          *          *

Well, there didn’t seem to be a history of violence or even just suspicious stuff following this particular mummy around, but that didn’t quite set Xander at ease. Every instinct he had was screaming that something bad was going to happen soon.

And then the next morning he was proven right when Willow came to the library with the news that Rodney had gone missing. “His parents say he never came home last night,” she explained in a worried tone.

Buffy frowned thoughtfully. “You know, I don’t think I remember seeing Rodney on the bus back from the field trip.”

Willow shook her head. “I didn’t either. I hope he didn’t get in trouble at the museum.”

Xander grimaced. “How much do you wanna bet he awakened the mummy?”

“Right,” Willow said with a giggle and a roll of her eyes, “and it rose from its tomb.”

Buffy grinned as well, but then her smile faded at the perfectly serious look on Xander’s face. She still didn’t know the whole story, but Giles had told her enough stories about the Greek gods (and, what, that in itself wasn’t a hint?) to know that there was something odd about Xander’s powers. Still, she trusted him and Angel, so she’d wait for him to get up the courage to tell her and in the meantime, she’d listen when he got worried. Buffy was striving to be more mature after her freak-out at the start of the school year. Giles openly appreciated it.

“Oh, no,” she said instead of making another quip. The four of them began scrambling out of the room. Destination: the museum.

Willow tried her best to relieve the atmosphere as they arrived. “On the other hand, maybe Rodney just stepped out for a smoke.”

Xander scoffed. “For twenty-one hours?”

“It’s addictive, you know,” she rejoined, but her heart really wasn’t in it.

Giles cut in. “We’ll deal with that when we’ve... ruled out evil curses.” They climbed the steps to the platform where the coffin was on display. Xander grimaced. Something had definitely happened. Instead of pain and loneliness the corpse in the room now felt more like confusion and helplessness. The mummy also wasn’t chained to the seal any longer.

“One day,” Buffy declared as they gathered around the coffin, “I’m gonna live in a town where evil curses are just generally ruled out without even saying.”

“There was a seal?” Giles asked pointedly. Xander stepped up to the coffin and looked inside.

“Well, it was right here, but it’s broken now. The enchantment is…weird. It feels messed up.”

Willow frowned. “Messed up how? Does this mean the mummy’s loose?”

Buffy shook her head as she handed the broken seal to Giles. “No,” she said, “she’s comfy as ever.”

Giles: stared intently at the seal, Xander also looking at it over his shoulder. “Look at this series of pictograms,” Giles exclaimed. Xander just shivered. It was frankly a bit terrifying, feeling the death aura all jagged and disturbed around the seal. His head then snapped up only seconds too late as a man came running out of nowhere, his life force stained with the death of both others, and himself.

He was behind Xander in an instant and swung at him with a knife. Xander ducked and quickly shucked his jacket off, throwing it up over the man’s face. He instantly started to mummify, and fell back with a scream onto the coffin. The stranger flung the jacket off and stood gasping as he recovered his vitality and regular human appearance. Then, he stared into the coffin and apparently saw something he didn’t like, as he let out yet another outraged yell and ran off.

The quartet still standing around the mummy’s coffin all stared, dumbfounded. Xander picked up his jacket.

“So, I just saved us, right?” he said uneasily. “That mummy guy didn’t just run off of his own accord.”

“What makes you call him a mummy?” Giles asked, sounding interested.

“He was as dead as the mummy from earlier,” Xander said. “But the magic around him is different. I bet he’s a guard supposed to wake up if the seal is ever broken.”

“Oh, that sounds great,” Buffy said sarcastically. “We now may have two mummies capable of wreaking havoc on the loose.”

Giles pushed his glasses up his nose. “I-I doubt the guard will do harm to anyone but the mummy sacrifice, but, well, we’ll fret about the details later. Let’s just get out of here before he comes back.”

They began to hurry down the steps to leave. All except Willow, who stood just beside the mummy’s head as her eyes grew wide.

“Giles,” she asked. “Were the Incas very advanced?”

Giles paused and nodded uncertainly, taking a step or two back towards the dais the mummy’s coffin rested atop. “Yes, yes, very,” he confirmed.

Willow was cringing. “Did they have orthodontists?” she asked doubtfully. The group of them surged back up to surround the mummy, and sure enough, there were metal braces on its teeth. Its clothes were also totally different from before, they now noticed. Giles and the three teenagers all stared up at each other in horrified realization.

They were still discussing it when they returned to the library. “Rodney looked like he had been dead for five hundred years. How could that be?” Willow demanded.

Xander grimaced. “Life force draining, probably,” he said. “Like my jacket, only something that works on living humans instead of the already dead.”

“I’d say we ask Mr. Crazy Knife,” Buffy quipped, “but I don’t think he seemed overly chatty.”

Willow agreed on that point, at least. “The way he bolted when he saw Rodney, I’d say he was as freaked as we were.”

Giles, of course, was as full of information as usual. “My resources on this subject are extremely limited. I-I gather that this particular mummy was from the Sebancaya region of eastern Peru. It’s very remote. Now, if there’s an answer, then it’s, it’s locked in the...”

Buffy finished the sentence for him, handing the object in question to Giles. “...in the seal.”

The librarian stared down at the seal in his hands. “It’s going to take me weeks t-to translate these pictograms.”

“My mom could help later,” Xander offered. “She’s better with Greek and Latin than ancient American languages, but she can still recognize some stuff where things got blended from when pantheons met. Hermes especially had a habit of wandering all over the globe even before the Americas were discovered, so Mom's got some knowledge she can share.”

Giles blinked and nodded in acknowledgement. “Yes, I’ll make a photocopy for you to take home, or maybe a rubbing. Hmm. Well, we’ll start tonight with—”

“Ampata!” Buffy jumped to her feet.

Giles blinked again, pushing his glasses up his nose. “I was going to suggest hunting.” Buffy shook her head.

“No, I’m late,” she said. “I told my mom I’d pick him up.”

“We might still have time to at least help Giles get started first,” Xander said. “Besides, I think crazy mummified killer on the loose should be higher priority than some foreign kid who will be just fine at the bus stop. Well, so long as he doesn’t go around the block to the playground. I’ve had to chase vampires away from the kiddies three times in the last two weeks.”

The Slayer blinked at that for a moment, opened her mouth as if to ask for clarification, but then shook her head and returned to the main point of her argument. “Ampata’s there _alone_ ,” Buffy pointed out emphatically. “And I-I don’t know how good his English is. He’s here from South A...” she trailed off, an idea striking her. “South America,” she finally finished. “Hey, y’know, maybe he could translate the seal.”

“ _Maybe_ ,” Xander stressed, “but I wouldn’t get your hopes up. I mean, can the average American teenager read Medieval Latin or Old English? That’s about what you’re gonna be wanting this guy to do, time-wise.”

Buffy just shrugged. “Well, it’s better than waiting two weeks while Giles and your mom try to translate it. Anyway, I gotta go.”

“Uh- we’ll come with you!” Willow exclaimed. Giles rolled his eyes a bit.

“I’ll just get a rubbing done of this tonight, then. We’ll begin our translation efforts tomorrow.”

“Got it!” Buffy called back over her shoulder as she was halfway out the door. Willow and Xander trailed behind her. “Here’s to hoping we don’t run into the mummy,” Xander quipped. “I’m death aura-ed out by now. I’ll be useless if we have to fight again.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Honestly, what are the odds that we actually run into the mummy again tonight? If it’s smart it’s hiding out somewhere.” Twenty minutes later they finally arrived at the nearly empty bus station on the edge of town.

“Forty minutes late,” Buffy complained. “Welcome to America!”

Willow looked worried. “What if he left already?” She tugged on the door to the station building only to find it locked.

“Ampata?” Buffy called out. “Ampata Gutierrez?”

Xander wondered aloud as Buffy came up beside him, “So, do we have to speak Spanish when we see him? Cause I don’t know anything much besides Doritos and Chihuahua. Why couldn’t your exchange guy have been Greek or Italian?”

Buffy ignored him, instead calling out again “Ampata?” This time there was an answer.

“Here!” a young female voice called back. All three of their jaws dropped as instead of a South American teenage guy, a beautiful young girl came out from between the two busses sitting silent at the station.

“Hello,” the girl said. Xander stared. She was gorgeous, sure, but there was something almost supernatural about her. Something…blessed.

“I am Ampata,” she told them.

“Ay caramba!” It just sort of slipped out of Xander’s mouth. “I can also say that!”

The other two didn’t seem to know anything to say, surprised as they all were by this strange turn of events. Willow also looked worriedly up at Xander, who was still entranced by this strange girl. For his part, Xander wondered what she was. She reminded him a bit of his mom, somehow. Was she a goddess? Or a demigod? Since they were all in hiding in this universe, Xander had never met another person connected to a godly pantheon before. Perhaps he was finally getting to meet someone like him!

*          *          *

The entire group all trooped back to the Summers’ house and Buffy began to show Ampata around.

“That’s the living room… dining room... And this,” Buffy flipped the light switch on, illuminating the room, “is the kitchen.”

Ampata seemed amazed. “It’s very good!”

Buffy didn’t seem to realize she was being serious, and sarcastically responded in kind. “Yeah, you got your stove, your fridge, it’s fully functional. We’re very into it.”

“Hey,” Xander said, coming up next to Ampata. “Would you like a drink?” His initial urge would have been to try speaking slower, but her English seemed pretty good. She understood Buffy-babble well enough, and that was a testament of skill in and of itself.

Buffy opened the fridge at Xander’s words. “Uh, let’s see, we’ve got milk, and, uh, oh, older milk...” She glanced back at the other girl awkwardly. “Juice?” Buffy asked.

Ampata nodded with a gracious smile. “Please,” she replied. It was as if everything she did was gracious. Xander was fairly certain he was smitten.

“So, Ampata,” Willow said, coming over to the table with a half-eaten large bag of chips. “You’re a girl.”

Ampata looked confused. “Yes,” she said in reply. “For many years now.” Awesome. Xander liked a girl with snark in her, even if Ampata’s snark was quietly and gently put.

“And not a boy,” Willow persisted, “cause we thought a boy was coming, and here ya are in a girl way!”

Xander shrugged. “It’s just one of those crazy mix-ups, Will.” And boy was he glad it had happened. He wanted to figure out what this girl was! It was a pity he’d worn himself out earlier fighting that mummy and trying to work out the spells in the seal. He’d used up too much godly energy, and so his senses were gonna be on fritz until he’d had a chance to rest up and recharge. Maybe he’d swing by a graveyard tonight or early tomorrow morning and just soak in the death energy. That would probably help.

Buffy changed the subject after an awkward moment of silence. “So, have you ever been to America before?” She set out glasses for the juice.

Ampata blinked. “Uh, I, I have toured,” she said hesitantly.

“That is totally cool,” Xander said. “I’ve never even left my birth town, much less my birth country! Where all did you go?”

Ampata thought it over. “I was taken to Atlanta, Boston…” She trailed off for a moment and then remembered one other. “New York.”

“New York!” Willow exclaimed. “That’s exciting. What was that like?”

The other girl shrugged bashfully “I did not see so much.”

“Your English is... very bona,” Xander said. But then Ampata looked confused, and Xander realized his mistake. “Sorry, sorry— bueno. I meant very bueno. That’s the right word, yeah?” Ampata nodded, still looking confused. Xander just laughed self-deprecatingly and explained. “That’s the problem with Romantic languages; I always want to just talk Latin.”

“Latin?” Ampata questioned. At the same time, Willow said, “I didn’t know you spoke Latin?”

 Xander nodded. “Latin and Greek,” he said. “Languages of the Olympian gods.”

“Oh! Because your mom’s a priestess?” Willow realized. Xander felt like banging his head on a wall. He and Giles had been dropping hints for weeks. How had Buffy figured almost everything out and _Willow_ was the one still oblivious?

“You mother…is a priestess?” Ampata asked curiously. “I did not know they still had priestesses.”

Xander shrugged. “Well, it’s more of a family thing, you know. Anyway, enough about me and back to my point earlier—that point being that your really do have great English. How did you learn? I mean, I can read Latin, but my mom says my accent’s atrocious whenever I try to talk under my own power. I’m better at Greek, see.”

Ampata just smiled prettily at the compliment. “I listened much,” she said with a shrug. Xander grinned.

“Well, that works out well, because I talk much.” They laughed together.

The next morning Xander met up with Willow on the walk to school. He’d gotten up with the sun after having fallen asleep in a graveyard while soaking in death energy. To his surprise, nothing bothered him all night. He wondered if he was starting to develop sacred locations. Those were places where a god’s power and influence was greatest. Considering the number of them in Sunnydale, it was almost inevitable that graveyards would become sacred to Xander.

Anyway, he’d woken up refreshed from his sleep to find the Mantle of Souls had expanded once again to cloak/trench coat form. It took him two blocks of walking to convince it to shrink back into a hoodie, and then he’d run into Willow, who was very enthused about her costume for the exchange program dance.

“It’s pretty cool,” she said.

“And no hints about it?” Xander asked. Willow just shook her head with a smile, her lips pressed tightly together.

“Well, my costume is pretty cool too if I do say so myself. And hey, I’ll be able to carry my sword around without getting in trouble for once!” He wasn't good enough at Misting his possessions yet to get away with just carrying it around in the open.

He fell pensive a moment. “I just hope it doesn’t look stupid.”

“I’m sure it won’t,” Willow assured him. “You’re doing some sort of Greek theme, right? For your family?”

“Yeah,” Xander said. “But I’ve never actually gone for the full shebang before. I mean, I wore a toga to a ceremony when I was like, six, and Mom used to regularly dress me in a chiton before Tony got mad because it looked like she was trying to make me dress like a girl—” Willow giggled at that, clearly recalling the period Xander was describing “—but stuff that looks good on little kids generally doesn’t look good on teenagers.”

Willow rolled her eyes. “Why are you suddenly so worried about looking like an idiot?” She paused, realizing what she’d just said. “That came out wrong.”

Xander had stopped listening, though, as Buffy and Ampata walked up the school steps towards them. While his senses had been haywire last night from overuse, this morning he could clearly feel the aura of death that surrounded Ampata. His heart fell. She wasn’t a goddess in hiding, or a demigod either!

Ampata _was the mummy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed that, and don't get too upset at the cliffhanger. Lucky you, I'm posting a double chapter set! Expect the middle third of this story arc in a week or so.


	8. Part 1, Legacy: True Names and True Forms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander meets an undead girl and has to decide what to do with her. Makaria meets one of her constituents.

“Your first day of school,” Buffy was saying to Ampata as they walked up to Xander and Willow. “Nervous?”

The (still very pretty) undead girl looked about her uncertainly. “It is just more people than I have seen in a long time,” she admitted.

Buffy gave her a comforting grin. “Ah, don’t worry. You’ll have no problems making friends.” She grabbed Ampata by the arm. “As a matter of fact, I know someone who’s dying to meet you.”

And with that, Buffy began pulling the mummy in disguise towards the library, a still shell-shocked Xander and a bemused Willow trailing behind.

Giles instantly came over and shook her hand. “How do you do?” he said with a smile.

“Hi,” Ampata answered shyly.

Giles then immediately got down to business. “I was, I was wondering if you could, um, translate this?” He handed her the seal and the only way Xander could describe it was slow motion horror movie. He wondered if she was going to drop it, based on her expression when she realized what she was holding.

“That was in no way awkward,” Buffy snarked at Giles, before she too noticed something just a bit off in Ampata’s expression. “Something wrong?” she asked.

Ampata jerked back into focus. “Uh, No! Uh, it is...” she hesitated. “Uh, why are you asking me?”

Giles did not handle this question well. “Well, uh, uh...” he coughed a bit. “It’s, well, it’s an artifact... from, from, uh, your... region. I-it’s, uh, from the tomb of a-an Incan mummy, a-a-actually. We were trying to translate it, uh, um, as a-a project for our, um...”

Really, shouldn’t he have come up with an excuse _before_ handing the artefact to the suspicious mummy girl? Of course, Xander doubted anyone else realized exactly what she was. To him, it was even clearer with the seal in her hands. The broken enchantments continually tried to curve over her skin in a way that seemed like it would hurt, and Xander had no doubt “Ampata” could feel it judging by the minute shaking of her hands. He had to figure a way to tell the others what she was, to warn them, but he still couldn’t help but feel sorry for the mummy girl. Those enchantments he’d seen holding her in mummified form at the museum were almost tortuous in how thoroughly they bound her soul, keeping her from ever going to the afterlife.

Willow managed a quick save, though. “Our archeology club,” she cut in.

Giles looked impressed with her quick thinking. “Very good,” he murmured.

“It is broken,” Ampata said reflectively. But Xander had to wonder—was it being broken bad or good? He couldn’t tell going just on her voice. “Where are the other pieces?” the mummy asked.

Buffy shrugged. “That’s all we found.”

“Hmm,” the undead girl deliberated for a bit. “It is very old and valuable.” She held the seal out to Giles. “You should hide it!”

Naturally.

Giles steamrollered over her concerns in his Giles way. “Is, is, uh, anything you recognize here?” He gestured at one of the pictograms. “Um, um, this, this, um... this ch-chap here with the knife, for instance?”

Ampata wavered for a moment. “Well, I-I do not know exactly, but...” She hesitated, and then took a deep breath. Xander had the feeling she was going to pull a fast one and claim she had no idea. Of course, it might even be true. Were the Inca in a habit of teaching human sacrifices how to read? “I-I-I think this represents, I believe the word is... ‘bodyguard’?”

Huh. So Xander could have been wrong. But that begged the question—why was she cooperating? Ampata didn’t seem like a horrible monster. She wasn’t a vampire. Her original soul was trapped in her body unable to move on, so her actions were entirely those of a human sixteen-year-old girl. And yet she’d killed two people. Xander wasn’t sure whether he wanted to get her alone to ask her some curious questions or just get Buffy to slay her and be done with it.

Giles took the seal back in fascination. “Bodyguard? Interesting.” He moved to sit back with his notes. Ampata kept talking.

“Legend has it that he guards the mummy against those who would disturb her.” So Crazy Knife Dude’s job was to keep the mummy asleep. Which explained why he had run away when he’d seen the wrong mummy in the casket.

Giles smiled uncertainly. “Well, uh, yes, well, that’s, um, that’s a very good starting point for our, um... club.” He glanced over at Buffy. “Um...”

Buffy caught on quickly. “Oh, and, uh, a-as club president, I have, um, lots to do. Lots of... stuff. Dull stuff. Uh, oh, Willow, maybe you could...”

Xander cut in. No way was he letting Willow go around with a life-force sucking mummy, even if said undead girl was acting especially innocent and harmless right now. “Stay with Ampata for the day. I’d love to.” He bowed a bit to Ampata with a smile.

Ampata smiled back at him, and Xander felt particularly sorry for himself. She was adorable with a great personality, and yet she was an undead life-sucking mummy. Life was so unfair. “Yes!” she agreed. “That will be fun.”

Xander gestured for Ampata to go ahead of him. As she walked out, he glanced very pointedly at Giles and made a three-fingered claw over his heart before shoving outwards. Giles’ eyebrows went up and Xander tilted his head at the girls before walking after Ampata. Giles would explain what he meant to Buffy and Willow.

Once they were an adequate distance from the library Xander slowed his walk with Ampata. She looked up at him in confusion.

“So…” Xander began, not sure of how to start. “Uh, you know when Willow said my mom is a priestess?”

The mummy girl drew back a bit, but she nodded warily.

“Well, that’s not quite accurate. Mom is a goddess. Willow is just being surprisingly oblivious right now.”

“A goddess!?” the girl gasped out. Xander nodded.

“Not any goddess you’d ever have heard of,” he said. “And she’s a minor goddess at that.”

“But- if she is a goddess- are you not—” she didn’t seem to know quite how to ask what she wanted to ask.

Xander just smiled. “I’m a demigod, right now. I’ll be a full god when I’m older. God of the dead, just like my grandfather. And of rebirth, just like my grandmother.”

“The-the dead?” she squeaked. Xander sighed heavily and looked at her.

“I don’t mean to frighten you, but Ampata—whatever your real name is—you should have died five hundred years ago.”

Her brown eyes were huge now, and she seemed speechless.

“I could feel your pain, in the museum,” Xander told her. “Whatever those who forced you to die did to you…it was horrible. But I can save you from that. I can help you to die for good. You’ll go to the afterlife, where my grandparents will take care of you until I’m a fully grown god and can do so myself.”

The mummy girl cringed backwards. “But I- I don’t _want_ to die!” she gasped out. She was crying. “It wasn’t fair, what they did to me. I am young, I am beautiful. I want to live, Xander!”

Xander was sympathetic, but there was something he had to ask before making any decisions. “Why did you kill Rodney and the real Ampata?”

The girl hunched in on herself. “My seal was broken,” she murmured. “I needed energy. If I could just move and leave, I could escape.”

He frowned. “Did you want to kill them?” he asked. She looked at him with wild eyes.

“I want to _live_ ,” she said again. And that was answer enough. But Xander had a thought. Because Ampata wasn’t divine… but the manner of her death had touched her soul. And so Xander asked another question.

“What if you could live, but you didn’t have to hurt anyone. Would you take that choice, or remain as you are?”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand,” she said.

Xander looked down at her. “As a growing young god, I need to create an…entourage, I guess you could say. A court as a future King of the Underworld. I could make you a minor goddess, a handmaiden in the service of death. You would keep the powers you have now, but you wouldn’t truly be dead. You would also be free from both the seal and that crazy guy with the knife. You would belong to me instead.”

“Belong to you,” she repeated. “What do you mean?”

Xander shrugged and began walking again. The mummy girl followed slowly behind him. “My mom belonged to my grandparents, even though she was their daughter. Makaria is the goddess of blessed deaths—those who die heroically in battle, those who die in their sleep after a long life. Those who are martyred and killed for a cause.” He glanced at her pointedly.

“My mother rules over your death, but she does not rule over all deaths. You would be like her: you’d have one job to do, and otherwise you’d just be a goddess hanging out with me in the Underworld. I’d… I’d probably make you goddess of martyrs and sacrifices. Or maybe a river-nymph. I have to pick nymphs for all the rivers in the Underworld at some point. Hmm.”

“You are serious,” she said, wide-eyed. “You would make me a goddess?”

“Well,” Xander said in reply, “only if you want to be a goddess.” He looked at her hopefully. “Do you?”

She wrung her hands. “I…I would be free?” Xander nodded and a look of pure determination overcame her face. It made her look prettier than ever. “Then yes. Xander, I will become your—handmaiden, you said?”

Xander grinned. “Yes! Exactly.” He slung an arm over her. “Now, the best time to do it would probably be-”

Ampata let out a shuddering gasp and ducked out from under his arm. Xander stopped walking and whirled around. Where his arm had touched her collarbone and the lower edge of her face, the girl’s features had shriveled. Her hands came up to cover it and her lips trembled. “You-you have-”

“Oh man,” Xander said. “I am so sorry. Normally that only happens to things trying to kill me, so I forgot about it. Here!” He began rummaging in his bag. He pulled out the container that had once been full of pomegranate seeds. Now, there were only three, and they were starting to look a bit withered.

“Eat this!” he said hastily, holding the container out to her. “It’ll fix it.”

She stuffed the three seeds into her mouth and crunched down, her features instantly swelling back to normal proportions and losing their withered look. She ran her fingers over everything, an expression of purest relief on her face.

“Sorry,” he said again. She glanced at him.

“It is alright,” she said slowly. “I suppose, in the future I will have to be careful as well, if I ever want to kiss someone.”

Xander blinked. “Wait, you suck people’s life out by kissing them? Weird!”

“Says the boy who does so whenever skin touches skin,” she shot back tartly. Xander just grinned.

“Touché. Though, in my defense I’d like to point out that my touch only works on things already dead. Hey, how about we go outside for a bit? All this gloomy talk is making me want some sunshine.”

They wandered around a bit, and Xander whipped out his sunglasses and explained his sensitivity to the sun to Ampata. He also told her all about his mother and everything he knew about minor goddesses, handmaidens, and river-nymphs. Ampata seemed to like the idea of becoming a river-nymph. Eventually the two of them ended up sitting in the bleachers, Ampata looking about herself with interest as Xander described some of the cool things about modern America.

“And this,” he reached into his bag dramatically, “is called a snack food.” He held up a Twinkie in its plastic packaging. Ah, Twinkies, how wonderful you were.

“Snack food?” Ampata parroted.

“Yeah. It’s a delicious, spongy, golden cake stuffed with a delightful creamy, white substance of goodness.” He grinned at her. “And here’s how you eat it.” He stuffed the whole thing into his mouth. Ampata laughed aloud at the sight.

“Mm-hm,” Xander hummed around his mouthful of Twinkie.

“Oh,” Ampata said, “but now I cannot try it.”

Xander reached into his bag and said in a muffled voice, “That’s why you bring two.” He presented her with a second Twinkie.

“Oh!” Ampata said again. She studied the Twinkie and then looked up at Xander with a grin. “Here goes!” She pulled her windswept hair back from her face and proceeded to stuff most of the Twinkie into her mouth. She laughed with delight around her mouthful.

“Good, huh?” Xander asked her, mouth still mostly full. “And the exciting part is that they have no ingredients that a human can pronounce. So it doesn’t leave you with that heavy... food feeling in your stomach.”

She squealed with laughter. “You are strange,” Ampata said in a muffled voice as she tried to chew.

Xander shrugged. “Comes with the territory I guess. Girls always tell me that.” He made a face. “Right before they run away.”

“I like it!” Ampata protested. Xander grinned at her.

“I like you like it!” he said.

She couldn’t help but laugh more at that. Xander paused; mentally went over his words again. “Please, don’t learn from my English.” Ampata just laughed even harder.

“I’ll have to introduce you to my mom,” Xander said. “I think you two will like each other. And she can teach you better English than I can.”

“And other languages as well!” Ampata said, clearly remembering the conversation from the night before.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, the bodyguard appeared. He attacked Xander with his large knife. Ampata screamed as she and Xander quickly moved apart and the knife was temporarily embedded in the seat between them.

“You stole the seal!” the mummy man shouted. “Where is it?!”

Xander pulled out his pen and when the bodyguard swung again, his knife was shorn in half by Xander’s black sword. The undead man stumbled backwards. “What _are_ you?” he gasped out.

Xander glared. “I’m Alexandros, heir to the King of the Dead. Thanatos, I summon you!” It almost felt like overkill summoning Thana twice in a month, but he really didn’t want this mummy man hurting Ampata before she’d sworn to him, and he had no interest in making this man a minor god. He’d been complicit in the stuff that had been done to Ampata, and the magic around him was like night and day, sheltering him as it tortured her.

Ampata screamed again as a skeletal figure stepped out of nowhere. The bodyguard looked back at her and recognized her. “It is you!”

But then a scythe went through him and his body withered to a husk, his blue glowing soul gaping up at the entity that had just removed him from his body.

Thanatos looked down at Xander warmly. “Little cousin,” he said. His reptilian green eyes slid over to Ampata. “Do you wish me to claim her as well?” Xander shook his head.

“No, Ampata’s my first handmaiden.”

The entity of Death regarded her for a long moment and then inclined his head gravely. “I approve,” he said simply. Then he and the now deceased guard’s soul vanished from this plane of existence.

Ampata was trembling. “He is gone! He is- he is gone!” he exclaimed, staring down at his body in horror. Xander put a hand on her, careful that his skin never touched hers. Those seeds should last her a day or two of energy, but he didn’t see any reason to accidently negate that before she’d sworn to him so that he could no longer accidently hurt her.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “Death will take his soul to the underworld, and he will be judged according to his actions in life, not his actions in death.” And then, “Come on, we need to move his body somewhere the police won’t go ballistic about. And trust me, a corpse on the football field is a recipe for mass panic.”

As they carted it to a closet nobody ever used (Xander planned to come back later and do a burning and purification ritual), a thought struck the young demigod.

“Hey, so we found Rodney, but…what ever happened to the real Ampata?” he asked.

The undead girl gave him a wide-eyed, rather nervy look. “Um.” Hoo-boy.

“Just…if you need to get rid of a body we can do that with my mom this afternoon,” he said. “I have to introduce you to her anyway before you swear, and tonight’s the best time for that because it’s a full moon—night of power, you know.”

The two of them hurriedly returned to the library after that, Ampata still shaken. She’d insisted on the way that she still wanted to go through with becoming his handmaiden, but she also seemed less utterly terrified of the idea of dying in general, now that she had some small proof that the hell she’d gone through for five hundred years wasn’t how the afterlife was supposed to go. When they entered the library Xander started with the words, “So I may have permanently killed that mummy bodyguard guy.”

The others all turned to gape at him and Ampata. “I-I beg your pardon?” Giles stuttered. Xander shrugged.

“I have a Stygian sword and a magic jacket,” he reminded the man. Giles blinked.

“No- I mean- I’m just startled he attacked you in the first place. Do- do you think you might have some idea as to why?”

Xander nodded. “Yeah, but first, can you do the British tea thing for Ampata? She’s kinda wigged out.”

“Oh, of course,” Giles said automatically.

Ampata sat and Xander remained standing behind her. As Giles passed the young demigod, he glanced at him. “Earlier-” the librarian murmured. “When you-” he made the three-clawed symbol to ward off evil.

“I thought there was something weird about her,” Xander said, “but it’s been resolved. Mom and I are gonna doing a sanctification thing on some of her luggage, but after that everything will be good.” He’d explain the handmaiden thing later, after they had performed the ritual. Xander didn’t want Ampata getting slayed before that happened.

Giles nodded thoughtfully, and then came out of his office with a cup of tea. He set it on the table in front of Ampata. “Here you are,” he said.

Ampata smiled up at him. “Thank you.” Giles nodded in response.

Willow frowned from her side of the table. “Why’s this guy so into us? I mean, what’s he want?”

“It’s ‘why _was_ he’ so into us now, Willow,” Xander reminded her. “And he was upset we stole the seal, apparently.”

“Are we so sure he’s dead?” Buffy asked. “I mean, that mummy looked plenty dead until somebody broke this seal thing.”

Ampata flinched minutely, but Xander was sure nobody else would notice. He could only tell because he was still standing just behind her.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Xander said. “There is a distinct difference between the feel of the magic keeping the two of them from actually dying, and the feel of a corpse. He was dead, I’m positive.”

“I do have to wonder why this is so popular,” Giles mused, looking down at the seal in his hands. “I just don’t know what we, we should do with it.”

Xander shrugged. “Keep translating it?”

“You should collect the other pieces and then destroy them all!” Ampata burst out. Everyone fell silent and looked at her and she shrunk down a little. “W-well, that will appease the souls of those affected by its curses. It is a powerful artefact. If you keep hold of it, someone could die.”

Giles sighed heavily. “I’m afraid someone already has.”

Ampata jerked. “You mean the man with the knife killed someone?”

“Uh, no,” Buffy said. “Well, not exactly.”

Ampata’s eyes narrowed. “You are not telling me everything.” She looked around at them all.

Xander sighed. “You’re right, Ampata.” He clapped a hand on her shoulder and sat at the table next to her, still careful to keep skin away from skin. “And it’s time we do. We’re not an archeology club. We’re in, uh...”

Giles interrupted him by clearing his throat and Buffy gave him an incredulous look. Xander rolled his eyes.

“Ampata’s had experience with the supernatural, okay?” he told them. “I’d say my magic pen-sword and the fact that the guy was a mummy were the least traumatizing parts of what happened earlier for her.” He turned back to Ampata.

“Buffy is a Chosen One. Kinda like the mummy was, only we don’t kill her and stuff her in a mountain tomb. Her job is to fight monsters. She’s super-strong, and we help her keep Sunnydale safe from evil creatures that want to destroy humanity.”

Ampata inhaled. “You are a reincarnation of Pachamama!” she gasped out.

Buffy blinked. “Uwha?”

Giles was cleaning his glasses. “That-that’s an old Mother Earth goddess in South America, yes?” Ampata looked around at them all slowly.

“It is an…old legend. It has to do with the mummy, and why she died. It is said that the goddess Pachamama, Mother of All, was brought to earth and lived as a young woman. She defended her chosen people from evil creatures of the night—demons and serpents and such. Then, she died. For generations afterwards, whenever the number of monsters descending from Sebancaya’s mountain grew numerous the priests would sacrifice god-touched young girls in the hopes that Pachamama would return one day, claiming one of her sacrifices as a vessel.”

Buffy’s blue eyes were wide. “That mummy is a potential Slayer?” she asked.

Even if Ampata didn’t understand the terminology, she recognized the question. “She could have been the vessel of Pachamama, if the goddess had chosen her.” The girl breathed out slowly. “You are very lucky.”

She stood up and quickly walked out of the library. The others stayed behind, looked at one another in puzzlement. Xander stood as well. “I’ll just…” He gestured over his shoulder. After he’d left the library as well, Buffy and Willow exchanged surprised and confused looks.

Xander found Ampata seated on a bench in the hallway, her head bowed. He crouched down beside her. “Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”

“I am sorry,” Ampata said. “I just…why was she chosen, and not me? I sacrificed everything for my goddess, even though I wanted to live and have happiness. I thought the goddess had just forsaken us, I never thought she would leave our people entirely for a different people, in a different land.”

Xander sighed. “Ampata…the Slayer isn’t a goddess. And I should know. I accidently brought Buffy back from the dead last year.”

She gaped at him. “You what?”

The boy shrugged. “I didn’t mean to, but, well…that was before I’d started building my court, so I didn’t have much control over my powers.”

They both fell silent for a moment. Then Xander spoke again.

“The way Giles explained it to me, the Slayer isn’t a goddess, or a demon. She’s more a spirit or state of being than anything. The girl Chosen gets super strength, crazy dreams, and the undeniable knowledge that she’s not going to live past twenty because every monster in existence is gonna want to try its hand at besting her at some point. Being the Slayer isn’t a great thing. I think your priests just misunderstood. It’s not as if that Slayer could have explained it. The way Buffy talks she just woke up one day able to break through doors with one punch and no reasoning why until her Watcher first showed up.”

Ampata blinked curiously. “Watcher?”

“Like Giles,” Xander said. “He’s a Watcher. I know you’re probably really hurt and confused right now, but please don’t be jealous of Buffy. She’s not had a life worth being jealous over.”

Ampata seemed to be considering his words, but she stood and walked over to the drinking fountain without saying another word. Xander followed her, but he held back to give her some space. Then Willow came out of the library and sidled up to Xander.

“Is she okay?” Willow asked.

Xander shrugged as he tried to think of a simple answer. “Wigged,” he finally said. “She may know about the supernatural, but I think it all just got a little overwhelming. I’m just trying to explain that the Slayer isn’t a goddess personified to keep her and Buffy from having misunderstandings. She just needs something solid to hold onto right now, I think.”

Willow looked over at Ampata sympathetically and then turned back to Xander. “You should take her to the dance,” she said.

Xander grinned. “That’s a good idea!” he said. “We’ll all go!”

Willow shook her head almost sadly. “No, I mean just you.”

Xander blinked. Wait, was Willow suggesting he take Ampata on a date? Sure, she was gorgeous and sweet, but he had to do an Oath Ritual with her tonight that would make them more master and servant than anything—well, he didn’t plan to treat her that way, he was hoping for another Willow-esque relationship. But dating someone whose life he had authority over? That wigged _him_ out.

“But you were psyched!” Xander reminded her. “And your costume!”

Willow just smiled. “I’ll see you there,” she said.

Xander thought it over. They would only be going on this one date, and his mom could probably explain why future dates would be a bad idea. And being on a “date” would give him an excuse to go off alone with her for the Oath. Okay then.

Xander smiled. “You know what, Willow? You’re my best friend.”

He went over to Ampata. They walked through the halls together, and Xander tried to figure out how to ask Ampata to the dance. He finally decided to just wing it as they went down the stairs.

“Okay,” he said. “I have something to tell you. And it’s kind of a secret, and it’s, um, a little bit scary.” He paused for a beat. “I like you,” he said. “A lot. And I want you to go to with me the dance.”

Ampata laughed at him. “Why was that so scary?”

He shrugged. “Well, partially because you never really know whether a girl’s gonna say yes or crush your heart under her heel, but also because after you become my handmaiden, us dating would kind of be a bad idea. I really do like you, though, so I really want to go on one date with you before I’m your boss.” He had the feeling he was babbling. Babbling was bad. Bad Xander.

Thankfully, Ampata seemed amused. “Hmm,” she said. “Then you are very courageous. Can I tell _you_ a secret?”

Xander nodded with a shrug and a smile.

Ampata leaned over secretively. “I like you, too,” she said.

Xander blinked and had to stop for a minute. “Really?” he asked, flabbergasted.

Ampata nodded. “Really!” Xander grinned broadly.

“That’s great!” he said. Then— “You’re not a praying mantis, are you?” She looked confused at that. “Sorry,” he said, “someone else.” She smiled at him.

“I will return to you,” Ampata said, starting to walk away.

“Where’re you going?” Xander asked.

Ampata smiled at him impishly. “Where you cannot follow,” she told him.

Xander was confused until he realized she was headed towards the girl’s bathroom. “I’ll wait outside,” he told her. He sat down on a bench to wait.

A short time later Ampata came back out smiling happily. Xander stood up. “I have thought,” Ampata said. “The dance?” Xander nodded expectantly. “I will go with you,” she said with a smile. “And afterwards you will save me, my young god.”

Xander gave her a broad grin and laughed delightedly.

He took her by the hand, and she almost jerked back, but then she realized that at some point Xander had found gloves and had put them on. They were a strange material, and shimmered faintly in a way that implied they had magic in them. Ampata gave him a brilliant smile, and they started walking down the hall hand in hand.

That afternoon Xander escorted Ampata to his home to meet his mother. On the way home they stopped by the bus station and claimed the luggage belonging to “Ampata Gutierrez”. Xander and Ampata left the large trunk and accompanying suitcases on the front porch and Xander brought her in to meet his mother.

Makaria was delighted to meet a young human girl under her jurisdiction, of course. She grew a bit more solemn when Xander explained everything that had been going on, and she drew her son aside.

“You are sure you want to have her for a handmaiden, Xander?” she asked him. “Even though she has killed?”

Xander sighed. “I think she does regret it,” he said. “She doesn’t have the aura of a violent killer. Sure, I can tell she’s killed, but it’s not angry and hateful like Spike’s death aura. She’s just a kid in over her head like Buffy, really.”

His mom sat back and thought this over. Then she smiled.

“Well then,” she said, “we should go and prepare my new daughter, shouldn’t we?”

Ampata had been sitting nervously perched on the edge of a living room chair as she waited. When Xander and his mom returned, she jumped to her feet, her brown eyes wide. The mummy looked a bit blindsided when Xander’s mom came up to her, kissed her on both cheeks, and welcomed her to the family.

Xander could feel Makaria’s blessing settling over her, lightening the weight of the chains of sacrificial magic burdening her mind and soul. This would start her road to freedom and the healing process. Becoming a handmaiden of the Underworld would do the rest.

“Xander said one of the people you killed was in this luggage, yes?” she asked. Ampata nodded timidly.

It turned out the mummified girl had hidden her second victim in the largest trunk of the original Ampata’s stuff. Xander’s mom had the two teenagers cart it to the nearest graveyard and Makaria gestured to her son. “You must release him from his curses, Xander,” she said.

Xander nodded and took a deep breath. This was the hard part—the part he’d never done before. He held his hands out and began chanting in Ancient Greek. Once he was a full god, he would be able to dismiss a curse of this caliber with a wave of his hand, but right now he was stuck acting as a magician. He was painfully aware that one mispronunciation could condemn this innocent guy to one of the Rivers of the Underworld, or worse, to Tartarus. But at last the spell was completed, and the spirit of Ampata Gutierrez rose from his body in a blue mist and faded away to wait until Death came to collect him. The corpse lost its mummified appearance, resuming the youthful face of a South American teenager.

The two Harrises then buried the body, performing a small ritualistic burning above the grave to further ward off any remaining evil influence. Ampata was quietly thoughtful.

“I wish I had not killed him,” she said quietly. The two Harrises looked at her and she continued. “I did not feel much remorse before. I needed to live, they were in the way. I was raised to think I was more important than anyone, because I was a potential host for a goddess. But now…” She looked at him with tears in her eyes. “What have I done?” she cried out.

Before Xander could so much as blink his mother had gathered the lost girl into her arms. “Hush now,” she murmured. “You are blessed, dear one. You have done evil, but under great duress and in great pain. You still deserve Elysium, despite what you have done.”

Xander smiled at her from over his mother’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, Ampata,” he said.

She stifled a sob, wiping away tears. “You know that’s not my name,” she said. Xander shrugged.

“Until you believe I am worthy of knowing your true name, I won’t pry. I know the power names can have.”

That made Ampata laugh. “Yes, well.” She stepped back from Xander’s mom and took a deep breath. “I actually had two names.”

“Two?”

She nodded. “The priests insisted when I was chosen as a sacrifice that my old self was dead. They named me Akllasumaq, chosen child.”

Xander shook his head with a frown. “That’s not your real name. It doesn’t feel like it resonates with you at all.” Ampata gave him a watery smile.

“Perhaps that is because I never wished to be chosen.” She stared off into the distance. “My parents named my Huch’uykilla, little moon. As a child people called me Killa.”

Xander blinked. “Would you like me to call you Killa?” he asked. She gave him another watery smile.

“I would be honored.”

The return to the house was somber. Each teen was quiet with his or her own thoughts, while Makaria hummed peacefully under her breath. When they got back, the first thing they saw was the pile of luggage on the front stoop.

“I suppose we need to get this stuff to Buffy’s house where you’re staying,” Xander said. Killa nodded vaguely, but Xander’s mom objected.

“Wait,” she said with a frown, rounding on the mummy. “Is that collection of boy’s things all you have?” she demanded. Killa nodded nervously.

“No,” Makaria said. “I won’t have it. Xander, you bring those suitcases back here. I’ve been meaning to clear out my closet for a while, and Killa here will fit into a lot of my older clothes.”

His mom was a bit like a whirlwind sometimes. She whisked the girl off to her room to try on old clothes and Xander brought the trunk and suitcases all back. Any clothes that were blatantly boy wear (such as underclothes, oversized shoes, etc.) were thrown out wholesale and replaced with borrowed things from his mom’s closet. Mom even went out as Xander and Killa repacked the suitcases and picked up a few packets of girl’s underthings from a nearby shop.

“There!” she declared just before allowing the teens to finally leave and head to Buffy's house. “That will do for now.”

Xander was already dreading the eventual, inevitable shopping trip.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's actually a third part to this, but I don't have enough chapters in reserve to warrant a three-parter, so you'll have to wait until the beginning of August to see the resolution of this arc. Frankly I'm only doing this so I can post the Halloween chapters on Halloween. I added a chapter and it threw my posting schedule off, so you get an extra June/July chapter as a result.


	9. Part 1, Legacy: Xander Gains His First Minion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dance, the pledge, and Xander must finally reveal all to his friends. He's just glad the time of secrets is over.

That evening, after a long day of being plied with clothes and other supplies by the depowered goddess, Huch’uykilla was quite happy with the collection Xander’s mother had given her. The woman had even lent her a makeup kit!

“Buffy, what do you think of this lipstick?” Killa asked the girl whose room she was sharing. All her things (once poor Ampata’s things, but she would pray for penance later) had been brought inside, but she hadn’t started unpacking yet.

Buffy jumped, seemingly not having noticed Killa entering the room. “Oh!” She looked at the shade critically. “No, that’s too purple. It’ll look weird with all that gold. Hang on; you can borrow one of mine. It’s actually gold. Over there.” She gestured to her desk and then glanced over the pile of luggage. “I see you got the rest of your stuff from the station.”

Killa nodded. “Yes,” she replied. “Xander helped me. I will unpack later.”

Buffy shook her head. “No worries. I can do it.”

“But... you must get ready for the dance!” Killa was confused. Buffy had been so excited for it earlier!

Buffy looked quite annoyed. “I’m not going,” she said.

“Why not?”

The Slayer shrugged. “I have work to do. We still have one mummy on the loose, after all. It’s really nothing for you to worry about.” She sat down on her bed.

Killa smiled warmly. “Oh, I am not worried, thanks to Xander.” Tonight, all her problems would be solved thanks to him. Buffy didn’t catch any deeper meanings, however, instead focusing on the superficial.

“He seems very happy around you,” she noted.

Killa sat down at the desk. “I am happy, too.” And she was, she really, really was. The girl looked down on the desk. She didn’t see any gold lipsticks… “Is it in a drawer?” she asked, opening the middle drawer to see only mascara cases and eyeliners.

“Maybe,” Buffy said. “Check the sides.”

Killa smiled again. “Thank you,” she said. “You are always thinking of others before yourself.” She paused, hesitated, and then said. “You remind me of someone from very long ago: the Inca Princess.”

It was true. Despite her arrogance she’d not been violent in life. Before this awful curse had condemned her to an unliving hell on earth, the Chosen Child would never have dreamed of hurting a fly, much less killing two people to keep her own life force intact.

Buffy looked pleased, at least. “Cool! A princess.” She stood up and walked over to Killa’s things as the girl in question tried the top right drawer. Only a hair dryer. Killa kept on talking.

“They told her that she was the only one. That only she could defend her people from the nether world.”

Buffy looked at the brightly colored dresses with amusement, mentally likening it to the sort of stuff her mom wore in old pictures. Killa was no longer paying attention to her own words, having gone through all the right drawers and now opening the top left. She sadly closed it upon seeing a sharpened wooden stake.

“Out of all the girls in her generation…she was the only one...”

Buffy walked over to the desk and picked up the golden lipstick from where it had rolled behind the lamp on her desk. She finished the other girl’s sentence. “...chosen,” Buffy said.

“I suppose as the Slayer you know this story well.” Killa wondered what Xander had meant, that Buffy didn’t have a life worth envying, but the haunted expression on the other teen’s face kept her from asking.

The Slayer simply snarked, “It’s fairly familiar.”

Killa looked down. She almost wanted to tell Buffy everything, but both Xander and the Goddess Makaria had warned her not to say a word to anyone until the ritual tonight. It was such a tricky thing, and only Xander’s second act as a true godling. Nothing could go wrong. Instead, she continued to talk about the “Inca Princess”.

“She was sixteen like us,” she told Buffy. “She was offered as a sacrifice and went to her death. Who knows what she had to give up in order to fulfill her duty to others? What chance at love?” She hesitated. “What did you have to give up?”

Buffy scowled. “Normal life. Popularity. Dating,” she said curtly. Then, in a whine, “It’s _really_ hard to date.” She turned back to Killa’s things. “I’ll just unpack the rest of your stuff for you,” she said.

The undead girl smiled at her. “You really are too kind, but there is no need. We will do it tomorrow together, how is that?”

Buffy grinned and let the trunk full of sixties sundresses fall shut. “Sounds like a plan,” she said. Then the doorbell rang. Buffy jumped.

“Oh! That’s Xander and Willow. I’ll get it!”

Buffy bounced down the stairs and opened the door energetically. She blinked at the sight before her. Xander came in wearing a Greek dress-thingy (Buffy knew from Xander’s talk about his mom’s priestly stuff that it was a chiton) in a very dark shade of blue. The tunic went down to his knees and met up with his sandals, which laced all the way up to just under his knee-caps. His himation was the Mantle of Souls, which was clasped at the shoulder with a death charm shaped like a skull. His Mantle fell like a cloak around his body in heavy black folds. His hands and arms were hidden by dark-colored strips of cloth wrapped all the way up to his elbows. His Stygian sword was not in pen shape for once, instead held in a leather sheath at his waist.

He struck a strangely imposing figure for the usually genial teenager, and Buffy was held dumb for a moment.

“I’ve come for the dance,” Xander said.

Buffy smiled at him uncertainly. “You look very Greek-ian. That’s a word, right?”

Xander snickered. “It’s Grecian, but yeah. Thanks. I was a bit afraid I wouldn’t be able to pull it off.” He looked her up and down. “And where are you from? The country of White Trash?”

Buffy shook her head. “Mm. New line-up. You and Willow are taking Ampata. Giles and I are hunting mummies. Where’s you and Willow?”

“She’s not coming... with us,” Xander said awkwardly.

Buffy blinked, and then looked bewildered before realizing what Xander meant. “Oh! On a date. Romance, lips...” She paused. “What about that out-of-town guy?”

Xander was saved from answering when Killa appeared on the stairs. Xander’s mouth fell open as she smiled down at him. He was seriously upset now that this would be their only date. Why couldn’t he just have one person he could date without them eating him or without his own issues interfering?

“Hello, Xander,” the mummy girl said as she came down the stairs.

Xander was just a little bit incoherent. “Hho hee ze thee ai uh...”

Buffy laughed. “I can translate American salivating boy talk. He says you’re beautiful.”

Xander glanced at Buffy. “Epainō.” Wait, no, that was Greek. Thankfully, Buffy didn’t miss a beat.

“You’re welcome,” she said with aplomb.

Killa reached the bottom of the stairs and stood next to Xander, beaming a huge smile. Joyce ducked her head in to have a look. “Ampata, don’t you look wonderful!” she gushed. “Oh, I wish you could talk my daughter into going with you.”

Killa just smiled. “I tried, but she is very stubborn.”

Joyce laughed. “Well, I’m glad someone else sees that.”

Buffy gave her mother a pointed look and received one right back. She turned back to Xander and Ampata, smiling.

“Well, good night, then,” Killa said with a grin. Buffy opened the door to let them out and Xander paused for a moment. He wished he could tell her that the mummy problem had been resolved, but his instincts (and his mother) warned him that he needed to have her sworn to him before he told anyone else. So tonight Buffy would be going on a wild goose chase.

“Be careful,” Xander told the Slayer. She smiled at his concern.

“I will.” Xander turned to head to the car where Killa was waiting and Buffy called out to him. “Hey!” Xander turned back to glance at her. “You look good,” Buffy told him. Xander gave her a smile and then left.

Xander and Killa arrived at the Bronze in style. They both got looks of admiration left and right, though many of the ones Xander received were double-takes of disbelief at how good he looked. Xander daringly grasped Killa’s hand. Her one exception to her golden outfit was a pair of white lace gloves Xander’s mom had lent her. Xander was glad of them, as he wouldn’t have been able to hold her hand otherwise. Sure, his hands were bandaged, but he wasn’t very good at it and there were still strips of skin showing under the dark cloth. As they walked around the Bronze a love song played in the background.

Xander spotted Willow after a few moments and made a bee-line for her. He blinked. That was a _lot_ of fur. Had Willow made this costume herself? Neat.

Willow grinned at the couple from the depths of her Inuit costume. “Wow. You guys look great.”

Killa looked hesitant. “I-I love your costume. It’s, it’s very authentic.” Actually, she seemed a bit confused. It made sense, she’d likely never heard of Alaska or the Arctic.

Willow’s answer was oddly curt. “Thanks.”

Xander tried to offset the suddenly frosty atmosphere. “Yeah, you look, um... snug.” Really, brain? Snug? That was all you could come up with?

Thankfully Willow didn’t seem offended. “That’s what I was going for,” she said earnestly. Then she frowned. “Where’s Buffy?” She had to turn her whole body to look around. Xander just grimaced sympathetically.

“Drafted by the G-man.”

“Oh!” Willow looked a bit crestfallen. “That sucks.”

Xander nodded in agreement. “Yeah, well, you know Buffy. Duty calls and all.”

Willow nodded back glumly.

The band began playing a new song as Xander and Killa left Willow behind. Xander smiled nervously at Killa. “Do you, um... Would you like to, uh... you know...”

Thankfully Killa seemed to know exactly what he wanted. “I’d love to dance,” she said. Xander swept his Mantle over his shoulders, took her covered hand in his bandaged one and led her onto the dance floor.

The pair touched hands slowly and carefully intertwined their fingers. Xander smiled at her. Killa let go of Xander’s hand and slowly moved it around his neck, careful not to touch his skin or his Mantle of Souls with her bare arm. They slow danced and Killa leant her head onto his cheek for a brief moment, her hair a barrier against skin contact. She pulled her head back and looks back into Xander’s eyes.

They moved in to kiss, but then both jerked back, remembering simultaneously that they weren’t supposed to touch so closely. Surprisingly, Killa hadn’t started to wither yet, but Xander took this as their cue.

“We should probably head out and do the ritual,” he whispered in her ear. Killa nodded with a smile.

“I have enjoyed this very much,” she told him.

“Me too,” Xander agreed. He began guiding her to the edge of the room. They didn’t have to be anywhere special, just alone. He leads her into a back room.

“Okay.” Xander takes a deep breath, actually rather nervous himself. “Right, um…” Killa looked at him uncertainly. “Sorry,” he said. “Just having an attack of nerves, you know?”

She nodded fervently. “Perhaps we should eat something first?” she suggested. “I could go get us food.”

“Uh, no,” Xander said. “I’ll do it. You stay here. Uh, here,” he handed her a slip of paper. “I guess you can practice your lines. I know mom already told them to you, but I thought you might need a reminder—”

 She held up a hand to stop his babbling. “Xander. Thank you,” she said. She accepted the slip of paper and looked down at the words, mouthing them but not yet saying them. Xander went off and grabbed them both drinks, skirting the edge of the room.

When he returned to the back room, they both drank the punch nervously. Killa finished hers first and set it on the ground. Xander cast about for what was supposed to happen next, and then remembered what his mom had told him.

“Kneel,” he said. She did so. “Uh…right…got your lines down?” Xander asked.

Killa smiled up at him. “I do,” she told him.

“Right,” Xander said again. He gestured for her to go ahead. The undead girl closed her eyes.

“I pledge myself to the god Alexandros,” she said softly. The aura of the room suddenly plummeted as her invoking pulled Xander’s godly aura to the forefront. He hardly noticed, but the human girl shivered. Even the music outside their little room faltered for an instant. The one thing he did notice was that when he went to take a sip of punch, it had somehow become pomegranate wine. The cup itself had become a kantharos[1] made of Celestial Bronze. He regarded his little formerly-plastic cup, blinking in surprise.

“I foreswear a life amongst mortals,” Killa continued, “pledging myself to the service of the Underworld. I accept eternity as a sister and companion of my chosen god, and I swear to always faithfully guide the lost to their place in Death.”

Xander hesitated, unsure of what to do next. This was a new ritual they were crafting, and at this point he was flying blind. Then he remembered the wine in his cup. He held his cup out to Killa. She looked confused for only a minute, and then drank deeply from it, nearly emptying the little chalice.

“Rise, Huch’uykilla, handmaiden of Alexandros,” he said to her. His true voice thundered around the room, frightening even him. Of course, that had to be when Buffy and Willow entered the room.

A black mist fell unnoticed down over Killa and seemed to sink into her skin. That lingering sense of undead vanished from Xander’s senses, replaced by the dim knowledge that Killa was well, and near to him.

Buffy and Willow gaped. “Wha… _what was that_?” Willow gasped.

Xander blinked in Buffy in confusion. “I thought you were out with Giles tonight,” he asked her.

Buffy’s eyes slid from between Xander, Willow, and Killa (whom she still thought was Ampata). “Well I was until my Slayer-senses went crazy and I nearly ran to the school.”

Xander grimaced. “Oh.”

“Yeah. _Oh_. Care to explain that, Xan?”

He cringed a bit, but he couldn’t quite help trying to dissemble. “Care to explain what?”

Willow looked righteously offended, for some reason. “Whaddya mean what?” she demanded. “What was with that-that voice and you look really scary right now and what are you and Ampata doing here all alone? Why’s she on the ground?”

Xander glanced at Buffy, who shrugged. “She covered basically all the bases, I think,” she said.

The teen sighed, but before explaining anything he purposefully released his godly aura, pulling his power back inside his body so that he seemed to once again be nothing more than a harmless teenage mortal. Even if standing so close to the Hellmouth masked him from the Powers that Be, there was no point tempting fate.

The Mantle of Souls reformed from its long cloak-like shape to the hoodie he normally wore, his costume also transforming into a variation of his normal clothes. Buffy and Willow both sucked in breaths and Willow even took a surprised step backwards at the blatant sign of Xander doing something supernatural. Xander just rubbed his forehead tiredly.

“Before I explain anything, I want you to tell me what you’ve already figured out.” Xander looked meaningfully at Buffy.

The Slayer hesitated only a moment before speaking slowly. “I…well, you and Giles have been dropping hints all over the place, but I wouldn’t say I’ve figured anything out for _sure_.”

Willow looked confused.

“Oh?” Xander challenged Buffy, raising an eyebrow. “You haven’t figured out anything?”

She bristled a bit at his tone, and grudgingly admitted, “Okay, well, I know you and your mom aren’t just priestess and priest-kid. Your powers are too extensive for that. You summoned Thanatos — and if I remember Giles’ lessons, that’s _Death himself_ — and magic jacket or no I’ve seen you dust vampires using your bare hands. No, you’re connected to the Greek gods somehow. To-to Hades and Thanatos and all of the ones that live in the Greek afterlife place.”

Xander couldn’t help but smirk. “Good job, Buffy,” he said. As he did so, the young godling reached a hand out and pulled his new handmaiden to her feet. He took a deep breath, bracing himself. Willow still looked—odd. Disbelieving, with a side of confusion and some strange level of lingering righteous indignation.

“My mother isn’t actually human. Her name isn’t Jessica, either. She’s really Makaria, only trueborn child of King Hades, god of the Underworld, and Queen Persephone, goddess of rebirth and renewal. As the son of a death goddess and a vampire, I’m a godling in human form right now.” He bowed sharply at the waist. “Alexandros Angelopoulos. It’s a pleasure to meet the Vampire Slayer.” He grinned at her a bit.

Buffy smiled uncertainly back. “Alexandros…Angelopoulos?” she questioned.

“Alexander, son of Angel,” he said. “The ancient Greeks weren’t big on complicated surnames. Of course, if I ever gain a Roman aspect my name will probably be something more like Alexandrus Olympus Pluton, or something.”

“Roman aspect?” Buffy parroted him again.

Xander nodded. “Yeah, the gods develop different forms and versions of themselves based on human belief and worship. Mom basically drowned me in the Greco-Roman culture to ensure I was actually part of her pantheon, otherwise I’d be some sort of modern American jigsaw puzzle influenced by the opinions of the kids around me. Because mom made sure I was Olympian, the only people whose opinions matter to me are those who believe in or worship the Greek and Roman gods in some way. But I’m still more Greek than Roman, because Mom was always more popular with the Greeks, so she never fully developed a true Roman aspect.”

Buffy considered this. “Huh.”

“What are you two _talking_ about!?”

The three turned to look at Willow, who was scowling with wide eyes. Buffy blinked at her. “Willow?” she asked in confusion. “What’s wrong?”

But Willow didn’t pay her any mind. Instead she scowled fiercely at Xander. “You can’t be a- a _god_! You just can’t be!”

Xander’s eyebrows went up. “Well, I am,” he said in bemusement. “Always have been, even if I’m hidden under a human disguise.”

“But that just doesn’t make _sense_!” Willow exclaimed. “I’ve known you almost your whole life! I think I would have noticed something like that.” Xander grimaced uncomfortably.

“Well you didn’t. Mom always just told you we were cultists or followed a weird old religion, remember? I wanted to tell you, but she didn’t trust little kids to keep our secrets.”

“Oh, and I suppose _that_ was more important than telling the truth to your friends? What else have you lied about? What were you doing just now with Ampata?”

Xander gaped. “Willow!” he protested, hurt. Of everyone he’d ever have to tell about all this, Willow was the one person he’d never imagined overreacting. Maybe he should have. He _knew_ she didn’t like change. She didn’t like to be lied to or finding out she’d been wrong, either. And this was all that put together. Willow just huffed, turning on her heel as quickly as she could in that heavy polar suit and stormed out of the room.

There was an awkward silence.

Killa was the one to finally speak. “Are you alright, my lord?”

Xander shook himself. “I will be,” he said morosely. “I’m sure after she’s calmed down some I can explain.”

“So…” Xander turned to see Buffy nearly vibrating in place, curiosity radiating off her in waves. “Can we have those explanations, now?”

Xander sighed. “Call Giles back to the library,” he said. “This will take a while and I have a lot to tell.”

Buffy frowned. “But what about the mummy?”

Killa and Xander exchanged a loaded glance. “Uh, let’s just say that’s part of my explanation.”

The Slayer was still confused, but she did as she was told. She called Giles back to the library and tried to get Willow, but at the last minute went and grabbed them all punch when she realized Willow must have gone home. Buffy returned to the library to see Xander once again in his Grecian costume. Giles looked concerned, and Ampata was nervous.

Xander grinned at them almost apprehensively. “Well, as I told Buffy earlier,” he bowed. “I’m Alexandros Angelopoulos, inheritor of the mantle of Hades. Pleased to meet you all.”

Giles blinked rapidly and began wiping his glasses. “Y-you have begun the proper transformation? But you said you needed to claim gods and other entities a-as-as servants to boost your power.”

Xander nodded. “As a recap for Buffy, I was born the minor godling child of Makaria, daughter of Persephone and Hades. My dad was Angel, a vampire, so my non-god side was equal parts demon and human. If mom hadn’t interfered I would have been another minor god or some sort of high ranked monster, but fortunately for me, mom found the Hellmouth. She didn’t know what it was until recently when I told her, but she did know the power from whatever hell dimension the Hellmouth opens to is similar enough to the power of the Underworld for her to do a very complicated ritual that essentially has me becoming a copy in power of my grandfather, Hades.”

“A copy?” Buffy asked. “How does that work? Are you like gonna turn into a creepy clone of some dead guy? Ooh, is this why Xander was so weird when he was possessed by the hyena, Giles?”

Xander laughed. “Probably was, Buff,” he said. “Anything weird about me can basically be tracked back to my family. As for your other questions…” He hesitated, not sure exactly how to explain.

“Ma-May I explain, Xander?” Giles cut in. Xander gave him a go-ahead gesture. Giles turned to the two girls. “The, ah, origins of the gods of the various pagan pantheons are mostly unknown, but it is known that however they came into existence, they remain that way based on belief and worship. That worship is strongest when it comes from humans — though there are a few rare exclusively demonic godly pantheons — and so long as a god has cultural, magical, or some other sort of influence in the minds of humanity they can continue to exist and thrive with all the powers they have long enjoyed.

“But it was known even in the old days before the Powers that Be, that if a deity’s influenced waned and they no longer had any real effect on humanity, that god would Fade. Effectively, this meant that the god in question would die a slow and lingering death as their essence returned to nothing. It was discovered, though, that if that god had an heir or some sort of magical inheritor — and such could be anything from a demigod descendent, to a monster or godly relative of similar power, to a human magician who claims the god as patron — the god could at least insure that their role in society didn’t cease to exist.”

Buffy frowned. “But wait, you just said that gods died when their influence was gone. Wouldn’t having someone bring that back just bring the god back to life?”

Giles shook his head. “I-I’m afraid not. Once a god has reached a certain point in the fading process, th-the death of their own personality and essence is unavoidable. But if, say, a dying storm god took a descendent or human worshiper and infused that individual with their power, giving up their remaining century or so of slowly fading out of existence, then that chosen Inheritor would become the new storm god. They would have a new name, and a new personality, but they would be the same god in essence.”

Xander jumped in. “That’s kind of what I’m doing with Grandfather. It’s a bit different because he’s stuck in a parallel dimension, not Fading, so things are both easier and more difficult for me. See, old Inheritors a lot of times found themselves either reenacting their predecessor’s myths or stuff as their powers grew, but Hades has been gone from this world so long that all I have to do is form an Underworld court and I’ll count as the new Hades. But that’s the hard part, because as the only real god left, I have to figure out how to transform other people into gods themselves to fill all the roles of the court.”

“Court?” Buffy asked. “Like a royal court or something?”

“Exactly,” Xander nodded. “I already had my cousin Thanatos swear loyalty to me—you met him when he took Daryl Epps back to the afterlife. But I also need some specific roles filled like a new Charon—a ferryman—new Furies—as my lieutenants and wardens of the Greco-Roman version of Hell—and I need some other minor players too, like river-nymphs for the rivers of the Underworld, guards for my castle and kingdom, and rulers and stuff for Elysium—which is essentially the Greco-Roman heaven.”

Buffy blinked. “Wow. That’s a lot. How long is that even going to take?”

Xander shrugged. “Maybe a few years? Not too long, hopefully. Huch’uykilla here just became a handmaiden of mine. That means she’s an immortal handmaiden of death right now—kind of like the Huntresses of Artemis, only she’s loyal to me and the Underworld. I’m thinking I want to make her a nymph of one of the rivers, but I can’t do that until I have a ferryman who can take me down the rivers of the Underworld. I don’t get the keys to the Underworld until I have a ferryman, see. So I just turned her into a servant so she’d stop going crazy from the sacrificial magic keeping her alive and driving her to mummify people.”

Buffy blinked again. Giles stopped rubbing his glasses and put them firmly on the bridge of his nose, looking gravely between Xander and Killa.

“Do you mean to say that this young lady is the escaped mummy we’ve been searching for?”

Buffy gasped, and Killa bowed her head and nodded shamefully.

“I am sorry,” she whispered. “Now that I can think clearly, I do not think I can ever atone for what I have done, but…I was alone for so many lifetimes. Alone in the dark with people only ever visiting to gawk at me, no one ever realizing I was still completely aware and awake even though I was dead… it was _torture_. I just…I just wanted to be free. To live again. And I’d grown up being told I was special, that I was the most important person in society, because Pachamama might choose me as her vessel.”

She lifted eyes full of tears up to look at them. “Now I know they were wrong, and Pachamama has nothing to do with being a Slayer. That for me to be chosen would have been total chance. But I did not know, so I felt justified. Why should someone else matter when I was chosen of a goddess?”

Giles grimaced and Buffy stared open-mouthed in horror. “That was, unfortunately, why the Watcher’s Council became what it is now,” Giles said. “Our own organization once had the same failing, and we raised Slayers to be arrogant. I’m part of a faction that believes raising potential Slayers in seclusion is in and of itself a bad idea, but at least we’ve stopped the worship of the Slayer. You cannot be blamed for believing what you were told all your life, though you are right in that the people you killed will always weigh on your conscience.”

“I think—” Everyone looked at Buffy and she swallowed. “I think the best thing you can do is move forwards and be the best person you can be,” she said slowly. “I…my first experience as the Slayer was horrible. When I moved here and met Giles I tried to run away from everything. Then, I helped despite still wanting a normal life, and died for my troubles. When I came back I acted the way you said you’ve been acting—all arrogant and stuff—and I nearly got everyone killed. Since then I’ve been trying to be a better Slayer, a better friend. Because you’ll never stop thinking about what might have happened, but at least you’ll be helping people while you move forwards.”

The dark-haired girl smiled faintly at her and nodded. Buffy jumped to her feet. “So…since I’m assuming the real Ampata is a mummified corpse somewhere, what’s your name? Xander called you something, but I’m not sure I can pronounce it…”

Killa laughed. “The name my parents gave me was Huch’uykilla, little moon. But I would be glad if you called me Killa.”

“Well that’s good. I’m not sure I could say your full name right.”

That had both girls dissolving into giggles, and Xander couldn’t help but grin as well. Everything was going to be just fine, now. He was sure of it.

 

 

* * *

 

[1] ancient Grecian bowl-like cup for drinking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you lot enjoyed this update! Next chapter will be at the end of the month/beginning of September. See you all then!


	10. Part 1, Legacy: The Mist and Ritual Troubles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Xander must learn a new skill in the aftermath of creating his first handmaiden. At the same time, preparations are also being made to empower Drusilla as a member of his pantheon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoopsie, I done goofed. Had this uploaded and in draft days ago, just forgot to post. Well, better late than never!

It had been two weeks after Killa had become Xander’s handmaiden and Willow was still refusing to talk to him. Xander didn’t know what to do; Willow had never really been angry with him before, and he didn’t know how to make it better. He’d thought letting her cool off would allow him to explain more and get her to understand, but she didn’t seem to be cooling off.

Buffy’s advice was to just give her time. Willow was a bit angry with Buffy as well, for figuring out some of the stuff about Xander and not telling her, but at least Willow was willing to talk to Buffy. Cordelia was not at all deterred by the morose air that hung over the two Scoobies, instead insisting on all the details about Xander’s ceremony to make Killa his handmaiden. Buffy had been interested as well, listening curiously.

The girls had been equally fascinated by what Xander had to do to get around the whole Ampata/Killa issue. _Surely_ someone would notice that Ampata Gutierrez had vanished and some girl had been using his name. And someone would definitely notice that “Ampata” never went home when the exchange ended after the dance. So Xander got to practice a new skill.

He’d explained that it was actually part of Sunnydale Syndrome. It was called the _Mist_ , and the mysteries of its origin and use were shrouded in the distant past. All anyone knew was that the various veils of Mist layering the Earth had something to do with wherever the various gods and pantheons had come from. Each mythology lived “inside” a different layer of Mist, keeping other supernaturals and ordinary mortals from becoming too involved.

Sometimes the Mist overlapped, and in places it was either too powerful or just didn’t work at all. The former applied here in Sunnydale, probably because of the Hellmouth. Xander’s mom said it must have taken a powerful sorcerer to weave such a strong veil of Mist around the boundaries of the town. For the most part across the planet the Mist had faded or stayed in old patterns, unable to be easily manipulated since the various pantheons had been banished to various separate universes with the War Against the Pagans.

But Xander was an Olympian. Aside from the Egyptians, who basically never left the boundaries of their Mist layers, the Olympian gods were the pantheon with the closest connection to the Mist.

He still didn’t want to draw too much attention from the Powers that Be. If he did, they’d try to squash him like a bug before he could get the rest of his powers and become a true immortal entity. But as an Olympian whose disguise was only skin-deep (unlike his mother, whose human shell was separating her from most of her powers until her body died) Xander could use the Mist to its full potential and hide his actions inside it.

That was…if he could actually _use_ the Mist.

Xander’s mom had actually explained the Mist to Xander, Buffy, and to Killa and Cordelia as well. She’d come up to the library for the day, looking deceptively innocent and ordinary in her frumpy clothes and tightly curled hair. Buffy almost couldn’t believe this woman was actually a goddess…but…well…that was kind of how people reacted when they learnt Buffy was the Slayer, so instead she really just found it amusing.

Mrs. Harris had explained that while any mortal who came into enough contact with the supernatural could learn to see through the Mist, even so any god, but particularly an Egyptian or an Olympian, could in turn weave the Mist thickly enough to even change reality. Out of all of them besides Xander, Killa and Buffy were the only ones possible able to _manipulate_ the Mist, but neither of them would be able to do much more than what Sunnydale Syndrome already did, which was make the supernatural seem like something normal. Mrs. Harris wanted Xander to do something much more complicated — he needed to make everyone believe that the original Ampata Gutierrez had come, stayed with Buffy, and disappeared on his way home, and he needed to make Killa’s presence seem both ordinary and as though she’d always existed.

He practiced for the two weeks after the end of the exchange program with little things. During that time Killa hid at the Harris home and Buffy and her mother both dodged the police who were only now growing suspicious. To do little things with the Mist only required Xander to snap his fingers and give a command. The thing that made it so difficult was the level of preternatural concentration he had to maintain while doing that.

Once Xander got the hang of the concentration needed to manipulate the Mist, it was a bit like being a Jedi. He got Larry to leave him alone one day, convinced various teachers he’d already turned in his homework multiple times (and then slipped them the actual assignment later), got _Snyder_ to leave him alone, and in his biggest act convinced everyone at school he’d really been at school after two straight days of skipping with Buffy.

 _That_ had been weird. Buffy clearly remembered dodging in and out of arcades, stopping by a demon bar where Xander had introduced Buffy to a few of his demon friends brave enough to meet the Slayer. But at the same time, she remembered everything they’d learnt those days at school, remembered doing and turning in the homework and everything.

Willow didn’t even notice they’d been gone.

Finally, Xander had dared to try the needed Mist manipulation, his mother hovering worriedly and giving him advice all the while. This instance was even weirder. Buffy remembered a strange boy living in her house. She remembered dodging around him while investigating the mummy, remembered waving him home gladly at the end of the exchange week. According to the news reports, Ampata Gutierrez had disappeared on his way back to South America, possibly having run away.

Killa and the missing mummy body were another matter.

For the mummy, after releasing Rodney’s soul Xander (with the help of his mom) had somehow transformed Rodney’s body into an exact replica of Killa’s as it had been before she was released from her seal, minus being a member of the living dead. They glued the seal back together as well and returned it to the museum in secret. They released Rodney’s soul first, so it just _looked_ like there was a cursed mummy still in the museum. Killa’s new life was the hardest part for Xander. He wasn’t confident enough to make her existence too elaborate, so she was introduced as a new girl at school whose family had just moved to California.

She had her own apartment with a landlord who seemingly didn’t notice that only a teenage girl lived there instead of a whole family of three. Everyone was fascinated with the beautiful and exotic new girl, and the no-longer-mummy enjoyed the attention. Her name was now Killa Ampato, the daughter of the eternally absent “Juanita and Johan Ampato”. Her school history was fully fleshed out and she even had a vague sense of the life Xander had created for her—a patchwork life built from her own memories of the time before being chosen as a sacrifice and of the sort of life she would have lived had she been born in this modern era.

Xander had passed out for _hours_ after this huge manipulation of the Mist, but… astonishingly, it worked.

Nobody batted an eyelash at the new girl, none of the teachers or students realized she was the same person they’d all been introduced to as Buffy’s exchange student. Snyder was nice enough at first to her, as Xander’s Mistform creation of her life and “parents” had her wealthy on the same level as Cordelia, but he quickly realized she was friendly with Buffy and never seen without Xander, and so she became tarred by the same brush. Even Mrs. Summers had no idea who she was and met her as though this was the first time they’d been introduced. Killa was integrated into the Scoobies easily, and while suspicious and a bit jealous of the new girl even Willow liked her. Buffy couldn’t help but marvel at what all her Xander-shaped friend had turned into. He was still Xander, but… he was _so different_.

Xander was very noticeable to Buffy’s Slayer instincts now. He seemed both more and less…real, somehow. When she wasn’t quite looking at him he seemed to be comprised of light and shadow, and when she was looking at him he seemed less “alive” than ever. His eyes were shadowed and his skin was paper-pale. Buffy had finally realized it wasn’t her imagination, and Xander’s jacket did actually start screaming faintly whenever he was angry. She was still in hope that she was just imagining the faint smell of brimstone that also accompanied Xander’s temper now.

Cordelia, unlike Buffy, found all the changes about Xander _cool_. Xander had for some reason completely stopped wearing bright colors—or possibly bright colors drained out of whatever outfit he put on, because she was sure that one Hawaiian shirt used to be a garish red and yellow instead of shades of grey and black and brownish—and his magical jacket was always with him, changing its form depending on Xander’s mood. Buffy had found herself talking to Cordelia more and more as Willow refused to spend much time with her. The two girls found a common ground in wondering about all the changes Xander seemed to be going through, and to their horror discovered they had similar tastes in fashion, makeup, and music.

She and Cordelia were actually acting almost like _friends_ , which was both horrifying and another reason Willow was angry with Buffy right now. Besides the whole Xander thing.

Buffy had finally gotten the full story about the out-of-town guy out of Xander as well. She’d been temporarily stymied in disbelief when she learnt the guy she’d been teasingly pushing Xander to date was actually a vampire. _How had she not noticed!?_

In retrospect, it was pretty obvious he wasn’t an ordinary human. Sure, he dressed modernly enough, but Buffy had only ever seen him and Xander together in dodgy locations near demon bars and demon haunts — not places normal out-of-town guys could frequent and stay alive. Buffy still thought the vampire guy had the hots for Xander though. It was the way the peroxide blonde’s eyes followed her friend in every encounter she’d seen of Xander and his vampire friend, and she’d noticed them talking and stuff three or four times around town just since the whole mummy thing, not even counting the few times before that.

Buffy stopped teasing Xander so much about his friend, though. It cut a bit close to home with how she and Angel had been dancing around each other for months now.

She’d been temporarily thrown by Xander being Angel’s kid, but had gotten around that mental hurdle by rationalizing to herself that vampires didn’t seem to mentally mature too much past their death, so Angel was perpetually in the mind-set of a twenty-something guy. He wasn’t just some ancient geezer with a pretty face. But Angel was still arguing the age problems and all the while she was busy failing to convince herself that dating a vampire was a bad idea.

There was an element of jealousy towards Xander too. _He_ could date a vampire if he wanted — Xander was going to be freaking immortal. The age differences would vanish quickly and Xander would never be in danger from vampires, since he was a death god. Once he learnt to control his powers better, he wouldn’t even have to worry about accidently dusting vamps either. Not like Buffy, who was the Vampire Slayer and as such had the lifespan of a head of lettuce, she thought to herself morosely.

To cheer Buffy up Cordelia tried introducing her to her most recent boyfriend; a college frat boy. Unfortunately, that quickly turned into an unmitigated disaster of the Hellmouth kind.

It was fun at first. Richard’s fellow frat-member Tom seemed nice enough, and Killa even got an invite. It had been almost fun sneaking around her mom, Giles, and Xander to get to the party, though a tinge of guilt had remained that kind of ruined the fun of it all. But the party had been cool, and the three girls had enjoyed the chance to just…enjoy themselves. Then they’d been drugged and had woken up in the basement of the frat house to learn that this fraternity was apparently a demon-worshiping cult.

The experience had been gross, and terrifying, and while Buffy would have quite enjoyed slicing that disgusting worm-demon to pieces, she and Cordelia got a surprise instead. They were both utterly astonished when Killa somehow conjured what looked like a skinny pitchfork that was made of the same metal as Xander’s sword. Sty-gun, Buffy thought it was called.

Killa stabbed the nasty worm-snake-demon thing with the funny-shaped pitchfork and it flailed, screaming. Killa had looked terrifying, suddenly appearing to be a mummified corpse wearing long gauzy black funeral clothes in Grecian style. The frat boys had all started screaming like babies and that was when the cavalry had shown up.

Xander, looking furious and actually kind of frightening with his magical jacket in the shape of a trench coat and his Stygian sword ready to attack. Giles, looking equally furious and holding a sword of his own. Of course, since they arrived after Killa had destroyed the demon the men just helped with all the clean-up.

They had to clear out all the demonic paraphernalia and essentially arrest the fraternity members. Giles was on the phone half the night with people from the Watcher’s Council who would be coming to take the foolish college guys away to…err… _reeducate_ them on the wisdom of summoning demons for power and wealth. And then Buffy was sat down by her Watcher for a lecture on skipping out on her duties. She pouted in dismay.

*          *          *

Most unusually, Xander found himself pouring over a weighty tome without Giles standing over him insisting he help investigate this or that supernatural occurrence. No, this research was entirely of Xander’s own initiative (if not his desire). According to his mom, he needed to do this research himself because he was going to use this information for his own Ascension. His mom was really stubborn about how it was “traditional” for him to do the bulk of the research on his own, so not even Killa could help him out. And it was pretty weighty translation work, too, Xander thought glumly to himself.

Somehow in the time between landing in this parallel dimension and giving birth to Xander, his mom had gotten her hands on one of the Jade Books of Heaven—a collection of ancient Chinese texts that covered topics ranging from the creation and maintenance of a universe to the regulation and alteration of national or personal destinies. The book had ended up being not so useful for Makaria herself, but when she birthed a godling child she found a new purpose for it. His mom believed that several of its rituals and instructions could be used to help further smooth over Xander’s unconventional Ascension. But, of course, she’d done all her research fifteen years ago with Thanatos fetching her other resources like the Book of Thoth or the Hermetica to cross-reference and augment the ancient texts to Hellenize and/or Latinize the new rituals she was creating. Xander had to make do with her notes and with his own translations.

He sighed.

At least he had a definite plan in mind now. Since Spike had come into town, they’d met up ten times. The first several had been clandestine meetings in various parts of the demon-y section of Sunnydale, but once Spike had gotten enough of a feel for Xander’s personality the godling had finally been permitted to meet Spike’s ill Sire.

Drusilla was crazier than a bag full of cats, but she had an odd tragedy about her despite being just as much a bloodthirsty monster of the night as her Childe. Xander at first had considered the idea of making her another handmaiden, and later a river nymph—possibly for the Styx, or for Acheron. Hate and pain seemed good matches for her, even whatever tragedy Xander could sense about her might also work for Cocytus, the river of wailing.

But he hadn’t been able to decide; nothing seemed to fit just right. And the more he’d gotten to know Spike, he’d started to wonder if he could somehow claim _both_ vampires for his underworld pantheon. Spike would definitely be an asset (as his mom would say). The peroxide blond was clever, sneaky, and Xander enjoyed being around him too, which was something the young godling really considered important.

One thing the thousands of stories of Greek and Roman mythology had impressed upon him throughout childhood was that the more dysfunctional a group, the less able it was to stand against outside threats. That was how all the Old Gods had been cast out by the Powers that Be, after all. There’d been infighting between pantheons and even within individual groups for millennia before the Powers showed up to throw a wrench in the works. Xander was building something new, and he really hoped he could keep that sort of thing from happening to him.

So Xander had gotten a different idea than making Drusilla a simple river nymph. Xander remembered the list of Powers he needed to recreate to claim his own throne. It gave him an interesting idea for dealing with Spike and Drusilla—particularly if he could find them a third person to round out their little group.

…Unfortunately, this decision meant he needed a ritual to transform them properly. Which, in turn, meant _research_.

Xander sighed a second time.

“That’s a weighty sigh for such a young godling,” a dry voice stated just over his shoulder.

Xander nearly jumped out of his skin. He whirled around, and his sword-pen materialized in his hand before he realized that it was only Thanatos. And this was indicative of his life, Xander thought dryly to himself, that he could actually say “oh, it’s only Death” and not be concerned.

Xander grinned sheepishly at his cousin. “Well,” he quipped in reply to Thanatos’ previous comment, “I’ve been doing weighty work. Boring, weighty work.”

Death tossed his scythe from hand to hand. “Conclusions?”

Xander shrugged. “I know what I _want_ to do, and I know more or less how it should be done, I just can’t figure out how to actually _do_ it!”

“Talk me through your research,” the primordial deity insisted. Xander nodded slowly and began to talk.

He explained how he had two vampires he wanted to claim, but there were…issues.

“My biggest problem is getting my hands on the ichor of Ouranos. I mean, he’s dead and scattered into Tartarus! If I could contact Aphrodite her blood might stand as substitute since she was born from Ouranos’ death, but she can’t come to this universe. That means my only other option would be finding Kronos’ Scythe, but Zeus hid that _who_ knows where. It might not even be in this universe because he did the hiding when the doors between worlds were still wide open!”

Thanatos watched him with amused eyes. “You do realize,” he said mildly, “that Aphrodite was not the only child born from Ouranos’ death. And some remain in this universe even to this day.”

Xander’s eyes widened. “Really!? But- _who!?_ ”

Thanatos smiled unsettlingly. “Can you think of no others, young one, who might have escaped the purge of the Powers that Be? No creatures who had in their very nature the perfect hiding place to sleep away the centuries?”

Xander was mentally going through everything he could remember about the death of Ouranos. The only thing he could think of was… “You mean the Meliades?” Ash-tree nymphs born from the splatter of Ouranos’ blood on the earth as Kronos chopped the Sky into little pieces. They’d mostly vanished into obscurity in the current universe of the Olympians, according to his mom, but if that was because most of them hadn’t bothered to leave this world during the War Against the Pagans…

“Where are they?” he asked impulsively.

Thanatos smiled again. “On the slope below the cave where Zeus was raised, in the forests of Britomartis, sleep the few remaining Meliai, hidden amongst forests of pine and cypress and oak.”

Xander looked back and forth from his cousin to the mountain of books. He stood, decision made. Giles would know better than he would. Thanatos’s smile grew unsettling. “Very good, little godling,” he murmured. Xander didn’t hear him, too busy gathering his research and readying himself to go to the library.

*          *          *

Giles was indeed a great deal of help when Xander explained what Thanatos had told him. “Th-the cave where Zeus was reared is rumored to be somewhere in Crete,” Giles told him excitedly. “An-and I believe his other clues can narrow the location even further.”

Instead of a pile of lore-books, Giles pulled out a set of world travel guides and country guides.

“These should help. We’re looking for a mountainous region, considering he spoke of a “slope”. Britomartis was a minor hunting goddess—or possibly a mountain nymph, her mythos was confused outside Crete—whom I believe remained hiding in Crete rather than escape this dimension with the rest of the Olympians. Now, another name for Britomartis is Diktynna, which I believe might itself give us a clue.”

“Yeah?”

Giles pointed to a map of Crete in one of the books. Xander blinked at the mountain range the librarian’s finger was resting on and read the name aloud. “The Dikti Mountains.”

“Yes, and in these mountains is the Dictaeon Antron, also known as the Psychro Cave.”

Xander blinked. He knew _that_ name. “Zeus’ birthplace.”

Giles grinned faintly. “Exactly.”

Xander pulled the map closer. “Where exactly is the cave in this mountain range?” Giles hummed thoughtfully.

“I’m not too sure. We’ll have to check maps.”

Xander nodded morosely and set to it. When Buffy and Killa walked in to the library they saw Watcher and godling bent intently over some dozen maps of Europe. The Slayer and potential Slayer had become quite good friends in the past few weeks, and since Willow was still sulking Buffy had taken to dragging Killa around in her stead.

“Wow. You guys started the party without us,” Buffy said brightly, startling Giles but not Xander. “Something going on I don’t know about?”

Giles waved her over. “You don’t have to be concerned, Buffy, nothing too serious is occurring. I’m helping Xander to locate the Meliades.”

Buffy blinked. “The Meli-whatsits?”

“Meliades, Buffy. Dryads born millennia ago, when Kronos killed Ouranos.”

Xander nodded, cutting in. “And I need to find them to ask if I can have some blood. Or possibly wood cuttings. Anything that can be turned back into Ouranos’ blood. That’s going to be a _fun_ conversation.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose and perched on the edge of the table piled high with books and maps. “What do you need _god blood_ for?”

“Do gods even bleed like mortals?” Killa added curiously.

Xander grimaced. “Well, it’s not actually blood. It’s ichor, which is kind of like blood except it’s actually pure liquid magical energy and one of the rarest and most dangerous substances on earth. You can tell ichor from normal blood because it’s bright gold. Anyway, I decided I’m going to make Spike and Drusilla gods. Well—god and goddess. Well—sort of. They’ll be chthonic deities, and those are sort of a category of their own. Of course, that’s if everything goes to plan.”

“I know who Spike is. That’s the hot vampire from out of town who keeps flirting with you. But who’s Drusilla?” Buffy blinked, curious at the unknown name. Xander winced.

“Uh, Spike’s Sire. She’s the whole reason he’s in town. She’s sick, or something, and Spike’s trying to find a way to cure her.”

Buffy stared, incredulous. “Sick? Can vampires even get sick?” Her eyes turned to stare at her Watcher, expectant.

Giles shrugged uncomfortably. “N-not as such,” he said. “There are a number of curses and spells meant to only effect vampires which act almost like illnesses. They’re _highly_ forbidden, however, as most require rather gruesome and drastic measures to cast at all. It is likely that they fell afoul of an aggravated dark sorcerer, or perhaps a coven of witches.”

“Oh.” Buffy contemplated this for a moment before picking up one of the maps. “So what exactly are you looking for?”

Giles pushed his glasses up his nose. “We were reliably informed that the Meliai groves are on a slope below the Psychro Cave, the place Zeus was birthed and reared. The forest they reside in is that of Britomartis, whom I believe to be a Cretan hunting goddess. The forest in question is one of cypress, oak, and pine. We are attempting to locate the Psychro Cave, but it’s slow going.”

Buffy tilted her head and Killa frowned. “How so?” Killa asked, Buffy closing her mouth instead of asking the same question and nodding along.

Xander scowled. “We’ve found three different maps with the cave on it, but they all have it in different places!”

Giles rubbed his forehead. “Yes, I-I am afraid some of these maps are a tad inaccurate. It doesn’t help that the cave did used to move around a bit. Olympian locations move with the center of worship. The last known location of the Cave in this universe had it manifesting somewhere in Ireland, but with the exodus of the Olympian pantheon from our world it _should_ have migrated back to Crete. The problem is my older books claim one location while the more modern tourist guides to Crete claim another.”

Buffy looked over the map she was holding, thoughtful. “Well, why don’t you find this forest first, then?” she asked. “The one for Brittany Martin, or whatever her name was.”

“Britomartis,” Giles corrected automatically.

Buffy nodded “Yeah, what I said.”

Xander’s mouth twisted thoughtfully. “I dunno, Buffy, the problem is she was worshiped across most of the island. She was even worshiped in a few places outside of Crete. I mean, any forest in Crete could be considered a forest of Britomartis, because she was pretty popular in ancient times. And I’m not even sure _which_ Britomartis we’re looking for.”

“Whaddya mean which one?”

Xander shrugged. “The original Britomartis was a Cretan hunting goddess, but basically her whole pantheon had faded by the time the Greeks rose to power. She acted as a nursemaid to Zeus, according to my mom, but by the time Zeus overthrew Kronos she’d faded to almost nothing. Her essence managed to survive in a demigoddess of the same name, a Greek daughter of Zeus and great-granddaughter of Demeter. She was a Huntress of Artemis and became Inheritor of the original Cretan Britomartis—like I’m Inheritor for my grandfather—and was subsumed into the Greek pantheon as a minor hunting goddess. But if all the Greeks left, it’s possible _she’s_ faded too, which means we might be looking for a massively depowered, faded goddess or we might be looking for a young semi-goddess who’s ascended to become a new Britomartis. Gods who’ve Inherited once are more likely to claim new Inheritors, see.”

Buffy’s eyebrows had gone up through this increasingly agitated spiel. Xander seemed to notice by the end that he was gesticulating wildly, and put his hands down, grinning sheepishly. “Wow,” Buffy said. “That is a problem.” She traced the map of Crete, finger trailing along a road. “It’s a pity you can’t just go there. I mean, you’re a baby god. Even if you can’t sense _them_ , surely they’d notice _you_ wandering around their island and get curious if you weren’t hiding what you were.”

Xander’s mouth opened and closed. “Uwha…” A gleeful grin overtook his face. “Buffy, you’re a genius!”

She blinked. “I am?”

The teenage godling leapt to his feet. “Yep,” he said cheerfully. He looked down at his clothes, an expression of intense concentration on his face. His normal everyday school clothes twisted around his body, shifting into a similar outfit to the one he’d worn at the Cultural Exchange Festival. His magic jacket once again billowed into a mantle, and Xander’s pen-sword—which he’d been taking notes with as he poured over maps—was now sheathed and hanging off his belt.

“I,” he announced, “am going to Crete.”

Buffy blinked at him. “How are you planning to do that?”

Xander gave her a sly grin. “One power I’ve never showed you guys that I inherited as a child of the Underworld is shadow travel. Those of us with a close relationship to Nyx and to Erebus can travel using the shadows. Mom used to use shadows to take me to all sorts of graveyards when we went on vacation together. It meant we never had to pay for travel fare. And that means I can go to Crete, right now.” He hesitated. “Well, not immediately. I’ll do better if I leave from a graveyard.”

The Slayer latched onto Xander’s arm. “I’m coming with you!” she declared.

Giles stood. “Ah, Buffy…” The Watcher winced at the determined look she shot him. “Oh, very well. But if you are going, I insist on accompanying you both. That is, if Xander can even take passengers.” He turned to look at Xander expectantly. Buffy also looked up at her friend, a hopeful look on her face.

Xander blinked. “Um, I think I can do passengers? I’ve only ever practiced with just myself and my mom, but we can always try it. Warning though, when I overshoot I always end up in Okinawa.”

“ _Japan!?_ ”

Xander nodded solemnly, his sober expression breaking through Buffy’s incredulity. “Tons of people died there in this big battle in World War Two,” he said quietly. “And there’s no pantheon there to take care of the dead because of the Powers that Be. They just…linger. All over the island. Humans can’t sense them, except in memorial sites, but I can. I don’t even have to reach for a graveyard or a memorial if I want to go there.”

Both Buffy and Giles regarded Xander with wide eyes. “Oh,” Buffy said in a small voice.

Xander shook himself, giving Watcher and Slayer a wan smile. “Sorry for bringing the mood down,” he said quietly. “Anyway, if you want to come along you probably ought to grab some weapons. We don’t know if we’re going to encounter trouble, after all.”

Giles blinked several times but then nodded decisively, taking charge. “Quite right, Xander. Come, Buffy, you and I need to equip ourselves. I’ll even let you take one of the proper bows if you like.”

That had the Slayer perking right back up, trailing along in the tweedy librarian’s wake excitedly. Giles quirked a smile at Xander. “We’ll meet you at Quinn Cemetery around the corner, Xander.”

Killa spoke up, a faint smile on her face. “I will return to your home and inform your mother, Xander.”

“Right,” Xander said.

As the others all burst into motion Xander shook his head, the wan smile slowly warming as Buffy excitedly chattered to Giles about never having left the USA before, and did he really mean it that she could borrow his nice recurve bow he almost never let her touch?

Xander couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him. Well. It looked like he’d have a Watcher and a Slayer as backup on his first real demigod (or was that godling) quest. This, he decided, should be interesting.

How right he was.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the next chapter! I hope you all like it. I'll see everyone for the chapter after this at the beginning of October. Next time - Xander, Buffy, and Giles on a Greek quest!


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